


a village

by ont



Series: mockingbird [4]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Actor Harry, Anal Sex, Awkwardness, Canon Compliant, Caretaking, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Domestic, Face-Fucking, Face-Sitting, Family, Family Drama, Family Planning, Friendly Exes, Functional Family, Honesty, Hurt/Comfort, Light Bondage, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Marital Issues, Marriage, Married Liam/Louis, Mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Oral Sex, Parent Liam, Parent Louis, Parent Zayn, Past Abortion, Past Relationship(s), Phone Sex, Post Mpreg, Post-Canon, Show Business, Step-parents, minor injury, painfully honest conversations, parenting, step-parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:08:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7935850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ont/pseuds/ont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Possibly Mia sets Harry on edge because she possesses her father’s same calculated vacancy. He wishes there were some great talker here for the weekend: a diplomat like Liam, or an entertainer like Louis. Harry’s thoughts take too long to unspool from his head, and Zayn only says an eighth of the things he thinks.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Harry, Zayn and Zayn's daughter spend a weekend together for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a village

LONDON, MARCH 3, 2029

Louis rubs his temples as he follows Harry and Mia out to the car. He's got a tension headache that won't leave him; he's chalking it up to springtime allergies, even though he's taken enough Zyrtec today to knock out a horse.

“Go wait in the car,” he tells Mia, as he takes Harry by the sleeve to stop him in his tracks.

She turns, duffel on her shoulder, and squints at him in confusion.

“ _Gooo_ ,” Louis says, flapping his hand. She sighs, but turns and complies.

Harry glances to him.

“Look,” Louis murmurs, once his daughter’s out of earshot. “I just want to give you a bit of a primer.”

“Louis, I know kids,” Harry says, shifting away from him slightly.

“No, no, I know, that isn't what I'm saying,” Louis assures him. “I want you to know she's going to test you.”

“Like someone else I know?” Harry says, smiling.

Louis laughs. “I'm not joking. This is the first time Zayn’s taken her and had you there. It's a new dynamic. As soon as you get in that car, she's probin’ for weak spots and testing your boundaries.”

“And what boundaries should I have?”

“We talked about this,” Louis says. He takes a moment to sneeze into his elbow and then carries on. “Just, like, you're allowed to cut her off if she's getting cheeky and invasive, but -- don't treat her different than normal, you know? Just be as much like regular Uncle Harry as possible, and she'll realize nothin’s really changed.”

“It's not like we’ve ever been close, though,” Harry whispers. “Not like her and Niall. And that is my fault, I do realize, just, like --”

“It's one car ride, Haz,” Louis says softly. “And then you've got Zayn as a buffer the rest of the weekend. Alright? I've got faith.”

He claps him on the shoulder.

“But,” Louis adds. “She ain't a kid. She's a teenager. Different thing. They're, y’know.” He waggles his fingers. “Wily, like. ‘Specially her.”

“Tommo,” Harry says soberly, placing two fingers under Louis’ chin and making eye contact. Louis chuckles. “I will do my level best.”

“All I can ask.”

 

*

 

Harry settles into the driver’s seat of his self-driving Aston Martin. He slips his sunglasses down over his eyes and looks to Mia, who’s curled over herself gazing at her phone.

“Ready?” he says -- redundantly, since it’s Mia who was so eager to leave.

She flicks her eyes up to look at him and nods.

Her energy toward him is different than it is in acting class, where she’s a gracious and eager student who is willing to put aside her teenage foibles for love of her craft. Now she’s a perfect blend of her parents, at once probing and self-protective, examining Harry but actively steeling herself against conversation.

Harry doesn't mind. He doesn't need to talk. He and Zayn often spend happy hours not talking. In his places in both London and Los Angeles, Harry has a south-facing room with plenty of windows that he does his daily hour of yoga in, and Zayn likes to join him there and paint near him.

When Harry’s done he’ll pop up, sweating, and look at whatever Zayn has painted; sometimes he’ll pick up a brush and add a few touches of his own. Zayn doesn't object. He said once, “I feel like art’s inherently a collaborative process,” to which Harry had replied, “Oh ho, Mr Solo Career?” and swiped the paintbrush playfully over his nose.

They've become very domestic in a short amount of time, maybe because they're both in their middle thirties and maybe because they've been together several times before. Their reunification has felt less like a revelation and more like a return to a comfortable status quo that should have been and never was.

Mia taps the dash in front of her to change the radio from the MOR Harry had on to an oldies station that's playing TLC.

“I miss when R&B was like this,” Harry remarks.

“I know,” Mia commiserates. “It's lame that I didn't live through this. I don't like how it is now.”

“What about your dad’s stuff?” He glances at her from the corner of his eye. He doesn't need to operate the vehicle at all, really, but habit makes him want to keep his eyes on the road.

“Mmm,” Mia says, and snorts. “His newer stuff, maybe. Louis’ only just let me listen to his older stuff, and it's so awkward to listen to. I can't believe people thought he was cool, it's so weird.”

Harry snorts.

“So, like... what are you doing?” Mia says, smoothly transitioning from a friendly tone to a needling one. “Are you trying to lock him down, my dad? Because he’s had, like, thirty boyfriends and girlfriends that I can remember, and none of them have stuck. Like... he was going to _marry_ Nina, up until November.”

Harry is mildly stunned by this, but doesn’t react. He tries to remember Louis’ protocol.

“That isn’t really your business, Mia,” he says politely.

“Yes it is. You’re my sort-of uncle, aren’t you? He’s my dad?”

She gestures as if to emphasize this.

“We’ve only been dating a few months,” Harry says delicately. “If we get engaged or something, you’ll be one of the first to know.”

Years of voice training, media training, acting and meditation all have to dovetail to allow him to keep his cool under the blazing gaze and demanding questions of a thirteen-year-old girl as they fly down the A1. He can hardly believe how rattling this is. He should have listened to Louis.

“It’s not like you’ve _really_ only been dating a few months,” Mia carries on, blithely blowing past his signaling that this conversation should end. “I know you were together before.”

“We were,” Harry says carefully, “but we were very young.”

“I know you were together when I was little, too.”

Harry’s heart clenches. He says nothing.

“I heard them talking about it on the phone once,” Mia continues. “My dads.”

She nails him with a placid but canny look. Harry sighs and decides to go off-script.

“Are you angry with me?” he says. “Because that isn’t fair or appropriate, alright? I know that -- I know it can’t be easy for you --”

He tears his eyes from the road and looks at her, so he remembers just how young she is, and how much she looks like two of his favorite people.

“I know…” he shakes his head. “Look, I have parents that weren’t together, too. I have a stepdad I love, too, and I remember how weird it was when my dad dated… and I know on top of that, the tabloids have made so much of all this, and now that I’m with Zayn it’s getting dragged up again, and I’d understand if you’re upset…”

“They’re just really hard on my dad, you know?” she says, sounding hurt. “Louis, I mean.”

“I do know.”

“And I know he was upset when he first found out you were together,” Mia says.

Harry breaks eye contact, then.

“The four of us have a complicated history,” he says simply.

Mia rolls her eyes. “I know. I know how to read,” she says.

“But you don’t know what’s true and what isn’t if you just _read_ about it,” Harry replies in exasperation. It occurs to him how deep in the weeds he’s gotten, now. He isn’t doing what Louis said at all. “Those people lie for a living. It’s all got a grain of truth to it, which is how they keep you hooked. But the bulk of it is just lies and exaggerations.”

“No one will tell me what’s what, though! Like!”

“You’re too young,” Harry says compassionately. Mia huffs. “I know it’s a shitty thing to hear, but you are.”

They don’t speak for a minute or so. The gears in Harry’s head churn as he laboriously turns thought into words.

“I’m not like other people your dad has dated,” he says slowly. “I care about you. I care about Louis and Liam. I care about your dad, most importantly. I’m not after him for good PR or for money or a good time. I like him as a person and I like being around him.”

Mia looks up at him with light, impassive eyes: Louis’ eyes. “D’you love him?”

Harry hesitates. “It’s complicated.”

“Is it?”

“I care about him very much. I’ve loved him in the past. I promise I won’t hurt him and I won't lie to him. I’m not like Nina.”

Mia shifts in her seat. “Were you angry when he and my dad were together?”

She must be digging at this because she senses, at some level, that he’s hurt Zayn before, and that he did it because of Louis. Harry wonders if a nugget of truth will satisfy her.

“I didn’t know they were together, when they were together,” he admits.

Mia looks up at him with interest. “Really.”

“I didn’t know until we found out Louis was having you.”

“And he’d already left.”

“Right.”

“So… my dad didn’t tell him about me?” she says, her voice small. “Didn’t try and stop him leaving?”

Harry suddenly feels terrible for her. “He didn’t know know he was pregnant ‘til after Zayn had gone.”

Mia’s face changes, and her mouth forms an o. “Shit,” she says, astonished.

Harry wonders if he ought to chide her for swearing, then decides it’s worth more for her to think he’s cool.

“You didn’t know any of this?” he says, squinting sidelong at her.

“He doesn’t _tell_ me,” Mia exclaims. “Not Zayn either. I think they’re embarrassed.”

“I don't know if embarrassed is the right word...”

“No, I mean they feel badly that everyone knows I was an accident. Louis is always like, no, _surprise!_ You were a surprise! Like a birthday party! Old people are so weird about that. Half my friends were accidents, or their parents weren’t married... it’s whatever.”

She pauses.

“I know there’s a lot they haven’t told me,” Mia says. “I don’t want to know most of it. It’s sort of awkward, you know? I’d, like, really rather not know. But then something like _you_ happens and all the tabloids bring this stuff up again, but I don’t know half of the things they’re, um… what’s the word?”

“What’re you looking for?”

“Like, saying it, but not saying it.”

“Alluding to?”

“Yeah. Alluding to, or whatever. It’s like, I don’t want to know, but the tabloids don’t give me a choice, because they give little parts of what happened because of me, but not all the specific stuff. It’s like a puzzle. It isn’t fair.”

Mia collapses back in her seat, seemingly worn out from having expressed herself truthfully, without teenage irony or eye-rolling, for so long. Harry reaches out and pats her arm.

“It’s not,” he agrees.

 

*

 

Zayn is engrossed in a novel in the sitting room when they arrive. Mia runs toward him and tackles him around the neck, knocking his glasses off; he chuckles and ruffles her hair.

“Good drive?” he says to Harry, who's carrying her bags. He sets them on the floor and puts his hands on his hips.

“Good drive,” he affirms.

Zayn looks sexy in a rumpled, professorly way. Harry would like to kiss him, but there's Mia, taking a seat at the piano and haltingly plinking out the beginning of Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor. This delights Zayn.

“I've only learned the first bit,” she tells him.

“That's fantastic anyway,” Zayn says. “Really brilliant.”

Harry feels like a pointless appendage to this interaction and begins to back out of the room. “Mia, I'll take your things upstairs,” he says quietly.

“Thanks,” she chirps, continuing at the piano. Zayn comes up behind her, hands on her shoulders, and squints in observation at her fingers.

Harry drags her backpack and suitcase up the dark, polished staircase. Zayn’s house in Kensington is steeped in aristocracy; it used to belong to some count, and then that count’s daughter. It isn't whatsoever what you'd Zayn would like, except for the large upstairs library and the perfectly soundproof basement that he uses for music.

But its chilly remoteness, the darkness of the wood and the height of the ceilings, the eerie nighttime creaks -- they all remind Harry of the most hidden parts of Zayn.

He's known him for nearly two decades, and yet Zayn still keeps a snarl of secrets tucked away in his chest. Possibly Mia sets Harry on edge because she possesses her father’s same calculated vacancy. He wishes there were some great talker here for the weekend: a diplomat like Liam, or an entertainer like Louis. Harry’s thoughts take too long to unspool from his head, and Zayn only says an eighth of the things he thinks.

Harry wonders if he should tell Zayn that Mia’s interest has been again piqued in the messy rectangle surrounding her conception. Maybe better for him to find out himself.

When he returns downstairs after lingering like a ghost in the bathroom, they're getting their coats back on.

“Goin’ to pick up dinner,” Zayn says, smiling at him. “What d’you want, love?”

“From where?”

“Fiola’s.”

“Chef salad, please.”

Harry folds his arms over his chest. Zayn comes close and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Mia is wrapping her scarf around her neck, and politely ignores this.

“Got it,” Zayn says, touching him on the hip as he departs. Harry gives him a smile back.

 

*

 

“So how much did you torture him?” Zayn says in the car.

“Dad,” Mia complains. She kicks her feet up on the dash, which is a very Louis habit of hers. A good tenth of Louis’ and Zayn’s parenting revolves around them discouraging bad behaviors in her that remind them of each other.

“I know you,” he reminds her, as they roll slowly down the hallowed and slightly claustrophobic streets of Kensington, engulfed in rush hour traffic.

“You know, you could have sent for takeaway.”

“I know, I like to talk to my daughter.”

“You don't need to hang out with Harry?” she says.

“I see him all the time.”

“What exactly do you like about him?” Mia says, observing him.

“Nosy,” he chides her. Someone honks distantly. He hates honking -- it works his somewhat frayed nerves. Years of living with anxiety have made him jumpy and cranky in middle age.

“I like to know things,” Mia says. “Like I said to your boyfriend, no one tells me hardly anything.”

“Some things are for adults to know,” Zayn recites.

“I can know why you like him, can't I?”

Zayn reminds himself to pick his battles.

“Harry's kind,” he says. “He's thoughtful and charming and intelligent. He's known me a proper long time. He and I have sort of the same interests and values. We fit well together.”

Mia chews on her lip.

“So did you and Dad, like, not?” she says.

“Baby, we've talked about this,” he says, pained. “Your dad and I were, and are, better off not bein’ together.”

“But you _were_ together, so...”

“Aye, yeah, of course.”

“Then why were you?”

Zayn sighs and rubs his head.

“I really like Louis,” he says. “I always have. We always have a good time together, no one makes me laugh like he does. But that isn't enough for two people with too much pride and big egos to stay together.”

“What about Liam?”

“Liam's got an ego, but it's more fragile than it is big,” Zayn says. “An’ ‘e's head over heels for your dad, in a really selfless way.”

He says this with some difficulty. Mia sighs, then. Her sigh sounds like his.

Zayn glances at her. “What's up, Yas?”

“Nothing,” she mutters. “They're trying to be sneaky about it, but I've heard them talking lately about maybe having another baby. Dad even left paperwork on the front table. I swear you all think I can't read, or something.”

“What paperwork?” Zayn says. He tries to gauge his reaction to this news. He's less moved by it than he expected. The only effect it has on him is to make him concerned for his daughter.

“Fertility stuff,” Mia says, crinkling her nose in distaste.

Zayn shakes his head. “Wouldn't be the end of the world, would it?”

“I wish they wouldn't,” Mia confesses. “Like, I love Oliver, but…”

She shakes her head and looks out the windscreen. Traffic has dissipated and they're moving along, now, nearly to the restaurant. Zayn drives slowly, so she has more time to talk.

“And what if they have a girl?” she says, fiddling with her charm bracelet. “I don't want them to. I know that's sort of immature.”

Zayn aches on her behalf. “Listen,” he says softly. “It wouldn't change anythin'.”

“I've been a brat lately,” she mutters. “Maybe they'll have a perfect little daughter who's easy like Oliver, and looks like both of them --”

“Hey,” Zayn interrupts. “Bad road to go down. Look, you're the firstborn, that's special. Take it from me and take it from Louis. This new baby’d be… just that, the baby, its whole life. It'd be you they'd go on to confide in and to consult with, you get all the firsts. So accept how special that is. And look…”

He exhales. Mia looks like she wants to interrupt, but doesn't.

“As much as your dad and me have had our problems, we’ll always love each other,” Zayn says softly. “Same with me and Liam. So don't think, like… that you look like me and that makes you some interloper if they have a little girl who looks like them. Louis wanted to have you because you were mine. It's _special_ that you're mine. You're me only kid on this earth. We all love each other. Alright?”

“Kumbaya,” Mia says sarcastically.

Zayn throws his hands in the air. “Fine!” he says, exasperated. “Mope about it, then.”

“I'm not moping!” she exclaims, offended.

Zayn handily parallel parks outside of the vine-covered restaurant, where it sits tucked between a hotel and another overly expensive eatery. He turns to his daughter.

“If you want me to tell you what you want to hear,” he says, “Fine -- I doubt your dad is going to have another baby. He’s thirty-seven, I haven't heard about him slowin’ down at work at all, and havin’ your brother was pretty hard on him. He’s told me that himself. So I'd table your worries for now.”

Mia nods. “Alright,” she says, sounding pleased with this.

He lets her out of the car and slings an arm around your shoulder. “How's the last stretch of junior secondary?”

“Same crap,” she says. “Maths is stupid, my friends are mean divs. But did Harry tell you he wants me to start trying out for community theatre?”

“He didn't,” Zayn mutters as they step into the restaurant, making a mental note to discuss this with him.

 

*

 

Liam comes home early, which Louis would ordinarily be happy about, except he worked from home today so he could monitor several different meetings at once and he’s still writing up his notes when Liam crashes through the front door wanting to have sex with his husband.

“Babe, babe,” Louis laughs, as Liam climbs over the back of the couch and lifts his shirt, kissing down his spine. “Jesus Christ.”

Liam laughs against his skin, tickling him. “Come on,” he begs, “let’s go upstairs… set your work down… Oliver’s at Jamie’s, isn't he?”

“Yeah, but --”

“So let's…” Liam slides his hands over Louis’ shoulder and down his chest, kissing up the side of his neck. Louis shivers with arousal and grips Liam’s wrist.

“Maybe try and make a baby?” Liam whispers.

“Might be a bit difficult, as I haven't gone off birth control yet.”

“When’ll you decide?” Liam says, and sucks at the skin below his ear.

“Give it another few months,” Louis says, and then begins to undress himself. “But fuck me on the couch here.”

“I can do that,” Liam says in a soft growl, wrapping his hands around Louis’ ribcage and making him laugh again. He staggers loudly out of the room, and Louis disrobes the rest of the way then lies across the couch with his muscles flexed.

Liam returns with lube and immediately goes to remove his trousers, then trips on them and staggers forward, peeling himself out of his briefs and letting his cock spring free. He tackles Louis against the couch, sucking hard at his bottom lip and beginning to finger him.

Louis moans and clutches at him, clenching and releasing as Liam slides in, two knuckles deep.

“What's gotten into you?” he breathes.

“Long day,” Liam murmurs, kissing his jaw. “Missed you, handsome.”

Louis sits up and pushes Liam’s back to the couch, then straddles his lap. They kiss more passionately, Liam sliding a hand up under Louis’ thigh and holding him in place with a tight grip. 

Louis slides more flush against him and begins to ride him. His thoughts slip from his mind like droplets down a fogged window, pooling into one amorphous mass, no longer more relevant than the symphony of their soft groans.

He likes that the older Liam gets, the longer he can go for. He’s almost come himself by the time Liam lets out a long, shuddering sigh and clings to him more tightly. He moves them again, maneuvering Liam over him as he flops onto his back against the couch and rubs off against Liam’s thigh.

When he’s come too he pulls Liam to him and they lie there for a few minutes, breathing heavily and stroking each other. Louis presses his lips to Liam’s hairline and breathes in his scent.

“What are we doing tonight?” Louis murmurs. “Movie?”

“Alright by me,” Liam says, tracing circles on Louis’ chest with his pointer finger. “But what can we watch that Mia wouldn’t be mad we saw without her?”

“Something dumb that girls wouldn’t like.”

“The new Bond?”

“See, but she likes the Bond movies.”

“Right, but I’ve heard this new one blows.”

“Well, then _I_ don’t want to see it,” Louis says, laughing.

“We could make fun of it,” Liam says with a grin.

“Aye, but maybe Oliver would actually like it, and then we’d ruin it for him.”

Liam sits up with a groan and a hand at his lower back. “I’m feeling old today,” he says. “Have we got Aleve?”

“There’s naproxen in the kitchen,” Louis says, sitting up and pulling his shirt back on. He examines the couch. “Christ, we’ve made a mess. If you’re going in there, can you bring a damp flannel?”

“But have we got _Aleve_ , though,” Liam says, pulling on his trousers.

“It’s the same thing, lad.”

“No way!” Liam exclaims, looking at him. “It’s not just naproxen, is it?”

“It is literally just naproxen with a fancy name.”

“I can’t believe that,” Liam mutters, buttoning his shirt. “I feel better when I take Aleve...”

“It’s all the placebo effect.”

“Well, now you’ve gone and ruined it for me entirely, then,” Liam says in a huff. “I could just be taking sugar pills, save my liver.”

“It’s actually your stomach that it’s hard on,” Louis says, reaching out and poking him in the abs. “Gives you ulcers.”

“How d’you know all this?”

“Luke’s been on a tear about the dangers of painkillers, I think the NHS has hired him to walk around scaring everyone. Anyway,” Louis says, patting the wet spot on the couch, “flannel, love, and quickly.”

 

*

 

Harry observes in quiet at dinner as Zayn and Mia argue passionately about a series subjects, such as if Mia needs Invisalign for one skewed molar (Mia: for, Zayn: against), if the UK should re-enter the newly restructured EU (both for, but they manage to find details to argue about anyway), and if Mia should be allowed to take an offer to model in a youth campaign for Aerie (Mia: for, Zayn: so against that his face grows scarlet).

“Over my _dead body_ are you modelin’ for an underwear company at thirteen years old,” he says, deathly quiet, and everyone lapses into silence for a while.

“You know, it's not like you can't afford to do my teeth,” Mia grumbles after a minute or so.

Harry looks up from his salad with the air of someone watching a tennis match. He thought this had been put to bed.

“That isn't my problem with it. My problem…” Zayn sighs, and his hand goes to his salt-and-pepper temples. “You start fixin’ all these little cosmetic things that aren't really problems, you wake up with Kardashian face.”

“That is the most dated reference,” Mia mutters.

Harry snorts and looks out across the patio, which oversees the garden. This dining room is as mahogany-toned and stately as the rest of the house, with high noble ceilings and a table of ridiculous length, but he does like the French doors that open to the outside.

“If Aerie isn’t an option,” Mia says, “you could at least let me model for J. Crew?”

“Your dad and I have talked about this,” Zayn says, pointing at her with his fork. “It’s a no.”

“When Liam took me to Los Angeles, that agent we talked to said it could help my acting career!”

“She was blowing smoke up your arse so she could sign you,” Harry says, surprising everyone, including himself. Mia and Zayn both turn to him as if they’ve just remembered he’s in the room.

“She’s wrong, anyway,” he murmurs. “If you want to lay the groundwork for a career later, a real acting career, where you're respected and have longevity that takes you beyond being the ingenue -- there's no replacement for paying your dues. At the moment, small roles in local theater is the way to go.”

“Well, see?” Mia says, pointing to him and looking to Zayn.

Zayn glances sidelong at Harry, somewhat reproachfully. “I haven’t had a chance to run that idea by Louis.”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Mia says in exasperation. “Every time I want to do anything, like fifteen different people have to sign off on it!”

“You should be so lucky that that many people care about you, Yasmeen,” Zayn snaps. “There’s kids in the world who don’t have _anybody_. Think about that. Not lookin’ out for them, not takin’ care of them, nothin’.”

“Well, adopt them and leave me alone, then,” Mia says, scraping her chair back.

“You’re not leaving until I excuse you!”

Mia freezes and stares at him with a look of chilly annoyance until he dismisses her with a flick of his wrist. She stomps away, making sure they can hear her all the way up the stairs.

Zayn glances at Harry. “Remind you of anyone?”

“Yeah, _you_ ,” Harry says, laughing.

Zayn looks deeply offended. Harry comes over and wraps his arms around him, kissing him on the neck and nuzzling him.

“She don’t get it,” Zayn mutters. “She hates the tabloids, she hates what they say about us, but she wants to be famous! She wants the glamour, she thinks she’s smarter’n us, somehow. Doesn’t get that as soon as she steps into the spotlight in her own right, she’ll be under the very same microscope.”

“You have all the power here,” Harry assures him. “She can’t do anything you don’t sign off on.”

“Until she’s eighteen.”

“She’ll be more level-headed by then, trust me.”

“D’you know,” Zayn mutters, “in three years she’ll be as old as you were when…”

“I know.”

“Three fuckin’ years! That’s it! I think about what happened to us happenin’ to her and it’s like, my worst nightmare.”

“We didn’t know what would happen,” Harry says. “It was a lightning strike, no one could have predicted that.”

“Exactly,” Zayn says. “That’s it, it’s like -- want to go outside? I need a smoke.”

Harry sighs but acquiesces. He follows him out onto the patio, where they sit and watch the sun sink the rest of the way over the horizon.

Zayn blows his smoke upward, so Harry isn't hit in the face with it.

“Anything could happen,” he says. “If I let her -- she could be the next big thing. You’ve told me, she’s got _it._ I hate that. I wish she could just be a kid. Just another goofy thirteen-year-old who gets embarrassed by everythin’. She grew up too fast.”

“She’s too much like you,” Harry says, smiling. "You were never good at goofy, either."

“I think it’s this goddamn media circus,” Zayn says. “How do you stay an innocent kid when you’re stalked by paps from the time -- fuck, literally, from the time you’re in the womb?”

“I dunno,” Harry says honestly. “You don’t, really.”

Zayn takes a hard drag and nods.

“I want a beer,” Harry says. “D’you -- have you got any?”

This hasn’t come up much, yet. Harry knows Zayn’s nearly seven years sober, but he’s been trying not to drink around him, anyway.

Zayn glances at him with warm eyes and smiles. “Bought some for you, yeah. Figured you might need it this weekend. Bring me a water?”

Harry opens the refrigerator to find a six-pack of upscale IPAs with citrus notes. He grins and grabs one, along with a bottle of Fiji for Zayn. When he returns, he settles onto Zayn’s lap and plays with his hair.

“So what’s that script I saw you readin’ last week?” Zayn says, sliding a hand up his thigh.

Harry kisses him on the jaw. “It’s really good,” he says, smiling. “It’s an art-house flick. Really good chance for me to do some good physical work… that's why I've been stepping up my yoga. There’s hardly any dialogue.”

He sips his beer.

“Are you definitely in it?” Zayn says, gazing at him. He takes one final drag off his cigarette and then flicks it into the ashtray.

Harry musses Zayn’s dark hair further. Despite the streaks of gray, it’s still as soft as it’s ever been; he loves the feel of it in his hands.

“Actually, Markus wrote the lead with me in mind,” he murmurs.

“Markus,” Zayn repeats. “Didn’t you two used to fuck?”

He sounds guardedly jealous. Harry takes Zayn’s hand off the outside of his thigh and slides it in between his legs. Zayn squeezes where his palm lands, and Harry tingles all over.

“We did,” Harry purrs. “Dated, actually. A while ago.”

“I might have to spend some time in Los Angeles, then,” Zayn says softly, looking up at him from under his eyelashes. “Make sure Markus remembers whose you are.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” Harry says. “You’ve aged loads better than he has.”

“Has my cock aged as well as the rest of me?” Zayn murmurs, shifting in his seat so it’s pressed to Harry’s arse.

Harry snogs him then, with plenty of tongue, and draws back to whisper, “You’re a better fuck now than ever.”

Zayn grins and grips his thigh harder.

“Although,” Harry says playfully, taking a sip of his beer, “the first time, you were a teenager who couldn’t last more than three minutes…”

“And the second time I was a drunk,” Zayn says, with a breathy chuckle.

“Not to give you whiplash, here,” Harry says, “but... I think you ought to go talk to your daughter, so we can actually enjoy the rest of our evening together.”

“Mmm,” Zayn says, withdrawing his hand. “Did sort of give me whiplash, Styles.”

“I’m just picturing her moping alone in her room.”

“She’s probably spray-painting that I’m an asshole on me living room wall, honestly.”

“Well, either way.”

“Alright,” Zayn says. He budges up in his seat and Harry slides off his lap. “Don't wait for me, go on about your nighttime routine if you like.”

Harry does wait, though. He sits naked in the middle of Zayn’s big circular bed, his hair loose and shining with product and nothing on his body but his rings and a silver cross. Zayn’s massive down comforter is so solidly ebony that it sucks in the eye and gives the appearance of the bed itself being a black hole.

Harry reads trade mags on his phone as he waits. Mia’s room is at the other end of the hall, and he can't hear what they're saying to each other. After a half-hour he hears the thump of a heavy door shutting softly, and he glances up, waiting.

Zayn comes in laughing, pushing up his shirtsleeves.

“I have to talk to Louis now,” he says, sounding mildly aggrieved. “I agreed to the local theater thing.”

Harry nods.

“You're naked,” Zayn says, his eyes roving over him.

Harry did feel sexy, until Zayn returned; now he feels uncomfortably exposed, having been reminded that Mia is right down the hall. He also feels juvenile and useless in his own childlessness. He casually covers his cock with his hand and smiles without it reaching his eyes.

“Don't tell him it was my idea,” he says.

“Why not?” Zayn says, disrobing and stepping out of his shoes.

“Zayn,” he says, incredulous.

“Harry,” Zayn says, mocking his serious tone and low voice. His belt clinks as he undoes it and drops it to the floor. “You're not overstepping. You're her acting coach.”

“I am overstepping,” Harry insists. “I didn't say it as her acting coach, I said it as her dad’s boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend,” Zayn purrs, kneeling onto the bed, obnoxious in his confidence at how good-looking he is. He presses Harry back against the comforter, palms pinning his wrists.

“I told you I don't want mess,” Harry whispers. “That's all.”

“You know,” Zayn says, “I’ve got the ultimate trump card of all time. You do know that. And his name is Liam Payne. So don't worry about _overstepping_ , like.”

Harry figures he's got a point and is relieved by this; Zayn leans in and kisses him deeply, sucking at his bottom lip. He feels a warm buzzing heat in the pit of his stomach, amplified by the alcohol.

“I wanna ride you,” Harry murmurs.

Zayn is still chronically worn-down from his last tour, Nina’s betrayal of him and the resulting media hullabaloo from his breakup with her, so Harry has been trying to go as easy on him as possible in all ways. He flops gratefully onto his back, tattooed arms spread, grinning boyishly up at Harry as Harry straddles him.

They fuck for a long time in that position, with Harry eventually tiring at his core despite how hard he trains at isometrics and leaning over Zayn to rest his hands on the bed astride him. Zayn holds him by the hips, his fingers digging into his laurels. His eyes remain half-shut, eyelashes fluttering as Harry maneuvers his cock in particularly deep. His gorgeous lips stay parted.

They're very quiet. Harry can think of nothing more mortifying than Mia hearing him moan or gasp. He knows there's no way she could through the thick walls of this godforsaken Edgar Allen Poe story of a house. Still, he remains fearful, only moaning when he can't help it, clutching white-knuckled at the sheets with his ring-laden fingers.

He likes taking Zayn as deep as possible, less so for reasons of his own pleasure and more because Zayn conceives him as some ethereal being with magical tantric orifices and Harry is loathe to disabuse him of this notion.

Sex is extremely mental for Harry; he’s hardly able to get out of his own head for it, which he supposes differentiates him from Zayn’s other partners. It used to make Harry cringe to think that his elaborate, cerebral and mannered approach to sex when they were together as teens had sent Zayn spinning in the other direction.

When Louis turned up pregnant, it was crushing for many reasons, but most humiliatingly it needled at a certain long-standing insecurity of Harry’s. _Of course Zayn was fucking Louis! Of course, of course, of course, who could be more different than you?_ Now it seems that since Zayn has matured, he wants Harry’s sort of sex again, which Harry is vindicated by in the guilty, mixed-up way he only ever feels vindicated.

He climbs off of Zayn and gets on his hands and knees, beckoning him forward. Zayn agreeably slides back into him and fucks him doggystyle. Harry grits his teeth and gasps.

“You feel so good,” Zayn whispers.

“Shh,” Harry hisses. “Shush.” 

Zayn grips him around the waist and pounds into him more vigorously. Harry leans his head down between his hands, letting out a long, soft exhale.

“You can be a bit louder, mate,” Zayn says breathily, laughing.

“I don't -- _ah_ \-- I don't want to,” Harry mutters, embarrassed.

“I'm nearly there,” Zayn says, his voice throaty.

Harry reaches back and grips Zayn’s thigh to steady him as he thrusts a final few times and spends himself inside of Harry.

Zayn collapses against the bed. Harry turns and joins him, lying in the crook of his arm. Zayn begins to lazily jerk him off.

“That felt sort of perfunctory,” Zayn murmurs. “Let's not make that a habit.”

“I don't want it to be,” Harry says, stroking his cheek with a thumb.

Zayn kisses his temple and smooths his free hand over his hair. “I like that you let me come in you now.”

He says it in a soft and boyish way.

“Thank birth control,” Harry says, tapping his upper arm where his minuscule implant lies beneath his skin, and then jerking his hips up as Zayn’s hand quickens on him.

“I really hate condoms,” Zayn says. “I know, I know…”

Harry snorts.

“Actually only had syph once, though.”

“Oh, so have I,” Harry says cheerfully. “Got it from a bloke in a bathhouse.”

“A bathhouse? You're sooo... _Grecian_.”

Harry tips his head back and groans as he comes in Zayn’s hand. Zayn wipes himself on a flannel he’d set on the bedside table and then offers to Harry, who swipes it over the backs of his thighs.

They settle against each other in sated sleepiness, their legs intertwined.

 

*

 

Louis has been reading Oliver the original J.M. Barrie Peter Pan recently, swapping nights with Liam who has been reading him Philosopher’s Stone. Tonight Oliver is clingy, not wanting to go to sleep. Louis sneaks a glance at him and notices that he’s not really paying attention.

“Alright,” he murmurs, shutting the book. “Want me to put a pin in this for the night, and just sit with you a bit?”

“Okay,” Oliver says agreeably, yawning.

Louis sidles up beside him and looks at the glow-in-the-dark constellations on his ceiling. Oliver buries his face against Louis’ shoulder.

Louis looks over at him. He feels especially tender toward Oliver when he’s sleepy; it’s when he reminds him most of Liam. Oliver glances up at him from under his fringe with basset hound eyes.

“You’re tired,” Louis says, smiling.

“No,” Oliver protests. “‘M not. Don’t leave.”

Louis kisses him on top of his head. “I need to leave at some point, love.”

“You don’t have to,” Oliver says. “You could sleep on the floor with Sheba.”

“People don’t sleep on floors.”

“I do at sleepovers.”

“Alright, grown-ups don’t sleep on floors.”

“What about the time I went downstairs and Uncle Calvin and Oli were sleeping in the kitchen?”

“Right,” Louis says, laughing. “They had too much to drink and they were being silly. But I need to go sleep in bed with your dad.”

“Why?”

“Because married people sleep in bed together.”

“Why?”

“Because they do. How was Jamie’s house?”

“Fun,” Oliver chirps. “He has a pet shark. Can I have a pet shark?”

“Love, you’ve got a lizard and a dog.”

“Those aren’t sharks.”

“We have a seahorse.”

“That’s _Mia’s_ seahorse.”

They did buy the seahorse for Mia; she thought it would be more entertaining than it turned out to be. She still dutifully cleans its tank and feeds it, but the other day when she was doing this, Louis heard her muttering, “What exactly is the point of you?”

Oliver is stymied by this and falls silent. Louis strokes his hair. In sweet, quiet moments like these, he feels a warm pressure under his ribcage that makes him want dearly to get pregnant again. He wants another Oliver, he does, he wants to have more of Liam’s babies.

Then the next day, the chaos of the house will resume. Louis will remember how difficult it is to wrangle two children and attend to all their varying and complex needs. He remembers how much he’s trying to do at work. His hands twinge with instrument-induced arthritis and his knees ache from age and he remembers that he’s thirty-seven, that even if he got pregnant as soon as he could he’d have a baby at thirty-eight.

Louis doesn’t much like being pregnant. He feels guilty about that. He loves creating life, he loves the _idea_ of being pregnant with another one of Liam’s children.

It’s everything else that he doesn’t like -- the out of control bits, the emotional upheaval, the general sacrificial suffering of it all. The immediate crazed pressure he puts on himself to slim down the second the baby comes. The deeply human vulnerability of either quite painfully pushing a child out of yourself, or having your beloved and formerly toned abdominals sliced open and stitched so it’s nearly a year before you can return to your former core strength, with diminishing returns.

And then a wailing newborn, for months and months. A helpless toddler for years.

He hates this stubborn streak of practicality in himself, because he passionately adores his children, and he’d adore more children. He’ll see something sweet, like Oliver snuggling up to Mia on the couch, and thinks he’s made up his mind to try for another. Then he’ll come home to Mia shouting at him about some perceived unfairness of his and a kitchen full of soap bubbles because Oliver tried to help them out by putting Dawn in the dishwasher, and he’ll think he needs another child like he needs a hole in his head.

Liam isn’t particularly helpful, because he is extremely bad at hiding that in his dream world, he would have been constantly impregnating Louis for the last decade and they’d have a football team of their own by now.

“It’s your body!” he’ll always say. “Your decision! I love our kids, don’t worry about me, do what you want to do, but I’d love another kid, but don’t worry about me, I’m totally happy, honestly, Tommo,” and then loudly clear his throat and wander into another room.

Louis sometimes wants to point out to him what havoc it would have wreaked on their marriage if they had the three or four kids that Liam used to talk about having. He wants to remind him that as rich as they are, they’re only human and would hardly have any time or privacy to have sex or talk to each other, unless they shipped all their beloved children off to boarding school, which they would never do.

If he had married an alpha woman -- but he didn't -- he could trade off on this burden -- but he can’t.

Oliver is beginning to fall asleep on him, so he very gently maneuvers out from under him and lies him back against his pillows, pulling his comforter up to his chin. He gets up from the bed with great care and makes his way across the dark room, pulling the door shut behind him and moving down the hall to where his husband waits for him.

 

KENSINGTON, MARCH 4, 2029

“Please don’t send me,” Zayn begs. “My darling, my angel, my favorite daughter.”

Mia looks up at him with a wicked grin, and then hits her croquet ball directly into his.

“Noo,” Zayn wails comically, as his ball rolls merrily away through the grass. Mia throws her head back, giggling.

Harry is leaning casually on his mallet, and snorts. “You realize that leaves _me_ in the best position, now,” he says to Mia.

“Worth it,” Mia crows.

The rest of the game plays out how Harry anticipated; with them growing more and more competitive and prone to sabotage until he's able to to take a quiet win. Then he sits in one of Zayn’s antique patio chairs under the trees and observes in amusement, sipping lemonade, as they vie for second place.

Zayn comes from behind and nearly beats Mia, but then graciously throws the game.

“I ought to go upstairs,” Harry says quietly as they pour themselves glasses of lemonade. When they don't hear him he repeats himself louder.

“Why?” Zayn says, glancing at him.

“I've got a conference call about my film at noon our time,” Harry says, hands in his pockets and his body language stiff.

The call is with Markus and the director, Xavier Dolan, with whom Harry had also had a brief affair -- in the unforgiving winter of 2020, culminating with his abortion and ending soon after.

Harry never told Zayn the father was Xavier, and he won't now. Him knowing about Markus is bad enough. The three of them have collaborated several times now, which is the only reason Harry’s been with both of them. He knows Zayn would understand this, on some level -- after all, he's slept with half of One Direction.

Despite this, he thinks Zayn would act jealous anyway, which would be _de rigueur_ in an exhausting way. Harry knows Zayn has matured well beyond the childishness of intense jealousy, and sometimes wonders if he consciously performs a vestigial form of it at him so Harry doesn’t flash back to Zayn’s jealous meltdown over losing Louis and feel less than.

Harry wouldn't, of course. Jealousy is generally a turn-off. It's like cologne: a little can be sexy, but the worst of men absolutely slather themselves in it.

He and Zayn have only ever discussed his abortion the once. Of the erstwhile band members, he and Niall are the only ones who know.

Harry has thought about telling Louis, several times now. There's a deep bond they shared in the beginning as the only two omegas; one that grew more and more strained the longer Harry pretended to be an alpha, the more famous Harry became, the more the Larry phenomenon began to weigh on them, but a bond nonetheless.

They were drinking on the patio in Los Angeles five years ago; Liam was grilling and had gone inside to finish the side dishes. Louis had had several beers and was quietly wistful. The topic of abortion came up organically, in some other context, and Louis had begun to shake his head.

“I know you've probably wondered from time to time why I went ahead with havin’ Mia,” he'd said softly.

They'd been through too much with each other for Harry to deny this, so he just rested his chin on his closed fist and gave Louis his undivided attention.

“I just…” Louis shook his head. “I couldn't. I dunno why. At first it was the opposite, all I could think was that I couldn't have her. On tour, and after what Zayn had done…”

“And you weren't in love,” Harry murmured.

Louis shook his head. “No. Nah. We weren't in love.”

“And you were both so young, Louis…”

“I know,” Louis said, smiling. “Hey, I do know.”

“Sorry. I don't mean it as a slam, just an observation.”

“I know it was hard for you in a lot of ways,” Louis said, and cleared his throat. “Everything else aside, you're protective of him.”

Harry bowed his head and didn't respond.

“Anyway… it went on a bit, and I just felt like I was drowning, and she was all I could think about. Felt like grabbin’ a lifeline. I couldn't not have her. I wanted her so badly.”

Harry’s throat grew tight. He hadn’t wanted to continue his pregnancy for any more than one fleeting moment that had come and gone as he was staring at the plus sign.

It never felt like a baby to him; a _baby_ was something he wanted dearly. Someday, in the right situation, with the right man and the right timing. He wants to choose the moment exactly, so that this child benefits from his absolute and undivided attention, so that his life is arranged around it, instead of the reverse.

A week after his abortion, he began the process of freezing some of his eggs, to divine a little light from this small patch of darkness. Thirty of them still sit in a fertility center somewhere, waiting in a sort of suspended animation as his life continues on.

“That must've been hard to come to grips with,” Harry said, projecting his own feelings onto the situation in a way that is unusual for him to do.

Louis laughed. “Easiest thing I ever decided. Everything else was what made it hard.”

Harry knew, then, that he couldn't tell him. They’re too different, always have been.

He didn’t want a baby _with_ Xavier, but he does want the sort of baby he and Xavier would have had; raised in the arts by artistic people, exposed to great works from a young age, bounced around the most cerebral New York set and learned in great novels and foreign languages from a young age.

It took him months to realize that this imaginary child is not much different from the one he thought of having with Zayn, when he was seventeen and allowed himself to dream of that sort of thing.

Harry waves to them as he heads back to the house. They wave cheerily back. Harry feels a tug of fondness toward both of them, and he allows his small, fragile hope to grow a few sizes as he thinks to himself that they might spend many pleasant weekends like this -- that, like Mia said, he may lock Zayn down, that Zayn may lock him down in turn.

The conference call gets boring fast. Markus and Xavier start to argue, as they often do, in a manner so artsy-fartsy that even Harry can barely follow the volley of technical terms being thrown around.

He lies down on Zayn’s bed, patiently waiting for them to finish. Fifteen or so minutes elapse with him only offering occasional input. He begins to wonder why they even wanted him on this call. His mind wanders.

His phone dings with a text, and since it’s to his ear, he shakes his wrist so his watch will display the texts on his arm.

It’s Zayn. _Mia kicked me out of the backyard, one of her mates called to talk shit wiv her. come down to the studio_

A smile curls Harry’s lips. He mutes his phone and tosses it aside, then whispers into his wrist, “What would you do to me if I did?”

His words appear. Zayn begins to type.

_Depends how long you make me wait_

“What if it’s another twenty?”

_might have to slap your arse for that_

Harry’s skin tingles, thinking about that.

“What if I tie your hands up?” he purrs.

_Then id have to just fuck you for it_

Harry begins to rub his hand against his cock through his jeans.

“Why don’t you come up here and do that?” he says, intensely aroused by the thought of Zayn fucking him while his exes argue on speakerphone a foot away, none the wiser.

_why dont you come down here and make me? im hard already just thinking about it_

Harry breathes in deeply, closing his eyes and rubbing himself with greater insistence.

"Come be inside me, I want you."

Zayn spends a minute or so typing.

_I know i said it felt like habit last night and i feel bad about that because i dont think i made it clear how bloody incredible you feel and how much i love fucking you every single time. you make me feel young again_

Harry closes his eyes and luxuriates in how warm this makes him.

“If I make you feel that good, maybe you ought to get off your arse and come here,” he says cheekily.

_oh come on styles. fuck off_

“I’ll start fucking myself with a toy if you don’t come up here,” he whispers. “And if you get up here before I’m done, you’ll just have to watch.”

_dont do that to me i want to feel you_

“Then come feel me.”

Half-hard, his heart racing, Harry picks up the phone and begs off the call with some lame excuse. They let him go, likely relieved that they can stop being faux-polite to each other for his sake, and really get into one of those philosophical tongue-lashings they love to exchange. Harry doesn’t care. He can hear Zayn on the stairs.

“This’ll have to be quick,” Zayn murmurs as he shuts and locks the door.

Harry cocks an eyebrow and gestures to himself; he's stripped naked in ten seconds flat.

“Good boy,” Zayn breathes, and tackles him onto the bed. They kiss deeply, moaning at each other's touch.

Zayn fingers at him for a few minutes and then slides into him. Harry, with gentle hands, pins his wrists behind his back and then ties them together with his own belt.

Zayn looks up at him with surprised interest in his warm eyes. Harry grins back and slides his hand into his dark hair, gripping it tightly. Zayn spreads out overtop of Harry, jamming his shoulder hard against Harry’s armpit to steady himself in lieu of his hands, and then begins to thrust in a wonderful smooth rhythm that makes Harry whine and black stars explode behind his eyes.

He crosses his legs behind Zayn and drags his nails hard down his back, since Zayn can’t stop him. Zayn groans in pained arousal and bites at his neck in retaliation.

When Zayn comes inside him he tightens his thighs around Zayn’s waist and draws out the last few thrusts, milking him for all he’s worth. Zayn’s eyes practically roll back in his head. Harry flips the two of them over and presses Zayn back against the bed, his cuffed hands trapped underneath him.

“You good?” Harry murmurs. “Green light?”

Zayn likes to play, but restraints can make him nervy if he isn’t in the right mood. Right now he seems perfectly calm, his eyes half-lidded and his lips parted. He stares up at Harry adoringly, and then nods.

Harry rides his face, gripping the pillows over Zayn’s head tightly and using his powerful core muscles to balance over him so that he isn’t jamming himself down Zayn’s throat. Zayn sucks at him greedily. Without the use of his hands, there’s an appealing desperation to him, like a caged animal.

He comes in Zayn’s mouth and then immediately his hands go to Zayn’s wrists, undoing the haphazard knot he tied in case Zayn wants to spit.

Zayn swallows, anyway. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and smiles at Harry with brilliant white teeth. Gooseflesh rises on Harry’s skin. He leans in and kisses him, tasting his own semen.

Zayn lays him back against the bed, sliding his hand under Harry’s head and cradling the back of his neck.

“You're perfect, d’you know that?” he murmurs.

Harry kisses Zayn in the center of his forehead.

He gets up to shower as fast as he can, although Zayn makes a half-hearted attempt to drag him back. He glances out the window before heading into the bathroom. Mia is still talking on the phone, wandering in circles and gesturing with vigor.

Harry turns the water up scorching hot and scrubs himself viciously with L’Occitane, not wanting to smell at all like sex. When he comes out, toweling his damp hair, Zayn is dressed in business clothes and fixated on his phone.

“Sorry, love,” he murmurs, not looking at Harry. “Something’s gone screwy with the licensing on me last single, I’ve got to come in for a meeting at the local office and take care of shit…”

“No worries,” Harry says brightly.

“Maybe take Yas, get lunch somewhere?”

Harry nods. He watches as Zayn packs up his tablet and slings his bag over his shoulder.

He crosses the room and wraps a hand around Harry’s waist, kissing him briefly.

“I promise when this weekend is over, we’ll go, like, I dunno… we’ll do a spa thing, at the very least,” Zayn says. “Get pampered together. Maybe go on a little holiday.”

“Zayn, you haven't got to apologize for leaving me with your daughter,” Harry says with a chuckle. “You're a parent, I get it. Most people our age are. Go fix your work thing.”

Zayn hesitates. Harry observes him.

“Can I be, like, totally honest?” he says.

Harry’s heart clenches in terror, but he nods again, folding his arms across his chest.

“It isn't licensing,” Zayn says slowly, rocking back and forth on his heels and not making eye contact with Harry. “I mean… it is. Sort of. But the actual issue is… you know Steve March? I wrote with ‘im on the last record? He's saying this single’s got a lot of the elements that he came up with for a song we scrapped. They're talkin’ lawsuit. ‘E’s totally turned on me, like… that.”

He snaps his fingers for emphasis.

“Does it?” Harry says quietly. “I won't be angry if it does.”

“I mean, not intentionally,” Zayn says, sounding pained. “But I see what he's talkin’ about. It just wasn't intentional at all. This shit happens. It's gonna look bad for me, though.”

“Of course.”

They don't speak for a moment.

“Thanks for telling me,” Harry says. He feels queasy, knowing Zayn was about to walk out having lied, but he supposes the right instincts winning out in the end is what counts.

“This happens,” Zayn repeats, with unnecessary emphasis.

“I know,” Harry tells him. “I'm, what -- five years out of the music business, after twelve years in? I do know.”

“You look upset,” Zayn responds plaintively.

“You were about to lie to me,” Harry points out.

“Look, Styles, I was embarrassed... We’re in the honeymoon phase,” Zayn murmurs, drawing nearer to him. Harry takes Zayn by the wrists.

“No, we aren’t,” he says gently. “C’mon. It’s _me._ There’s no honeymoon phase.”

Zayn clicks his tongue against his teeth. “I s’pose…”

He smiles at Harry, conciliatory. Harry gives him a wink and a peck on the lips, then removes the towel from his shoulders and swats Zayn’s arse with it. “Go!”

“Going!” Zayn exclaims, backing out of the room.

 

*

 

Harry begins to worry about Zayn, then, as he leaves. Why did he not press him harder on the details? Is this more serious than he’s letting on? He’s pestered by these thoughts as he dresses and then as he goes downstairs.

Mia is perched on the ornate leather couch in the sitting room, watching a projection of a documentary. She glances up at him and dismisses the display with a flick of her wrist. Harry feels a spike of fondness toward her, knowing she still watches nature docs in spite of her tight hold on her teenage too-cool-for-anybody pretense.

“Want to get lunch?” he says, slipping his hands in his pockets.

Mia smirks at him. “Nice,” she says, tapping her neck.

Harry is confused, and then realizes with horror that Zayn must have left a lovebite on him.

“That’s none of your business,” he mutters in embarrassment, raising his hand self-consciously to his throat.

“If I can’t give you a hard time for dating my dad, what’s the point of you dating my dad?” she says, with faked innocent confusion.

“Knock it off, or I’ll make you do nothing but question scenes in class next week,” Harry informs her. She gasps and he laughs, settling at the other end of the couch.

“Want lunch?” he asks again.

“Sure, let's do McDonald’s.”

Harry grimaces, but says, “Alright. Can you grab my sunnies?”

Mia picks them up off the coffee table and tosses them to him with an able right hand. She’s got solid aim; Harry has wondered, since he began instructing her and gotten to know her better, if she’d do well at cricket or possibly even boxing. He’d mentioned this to Louis when he saw him at their annual Christmas party, but Louis was several eggnogs to the wind and had just laughed and accused him of being biased against non-gatekeeping football players.

“Did you only say McDonald’s because I hate it?” he says.

“No,” she replies, standing. “But watching you figure out what to order is going to be hilarious.”

Harry gapes at her. “Villain!”

Mia laughs and gambols out of the room, beckoning impatiently for him to follow.

 

DONCASTER, MARCH 4, 2029

“I don't understand it,” Jay calls, shaking her head.

“Mum,” Louis sighs. He finishes slotting her fallen solar panel back into place and climbs nimbly down the ladder, squishing into the wet grass of her garden with muddy boots. He pulls his work gloves off and tosses them aside. “What isn't there to get?”

“I thought you two wanted more, is all,” Jay exclaims, hands on her hips.

Louis takes his leave, pushing open the back door and making his way into the kitchen. He pops his now-lukewarm tea in the microwave and turns around; his mother has followed him and is looking at him expectantly.

“Mum,” he says patiently, “you've got two kids out of me, you've got Stef from Lottie, and there's surely many more to come. What d’you care if I have more?”

“I just think you two make nice babies." Jay takes a seat. “I think it's a bit of a shame not to have more. I don't know why you waited so long after Oliver...”

In the other room, Louis can hear Dan clear his throat and turn up the television. He hates when they talk about reproductive issues. Louis still remembers when he first visited home after OTRA, extremely pregnant, and Dan had awkwardly asked him, “So, how is… how are things?” and then dropped his gaze and quickly handed him a section of the newspaper.

“Mum, Oliver put me on three weeks of bed rest,” Louis says. “Having Oliver was properly hard on me. I've been _working_ , I've been building a legacy.”

“You can do both, you've got the means.”

“Not if I want them to have as normal childhoods as possible,” Louis says. “Not that that ship hasn't sort of sailed with Mia, already,” he adds darkly.

“Look, love, I want you to do whatever feels right,” Jay says, her face plaintive.

Louis sips his tea.

“I just don't want you to have regrets.”

“I won't,” Louis says immediately. “My life is full.”

“Just one more baby,” she says, smiling. “It wouldn't be as hard as you think.”

“It'd be exactly that hard, mum.”

“Well,” she says, “how does Liam feel?”

Louis’ face grows hot. “He wants what I want,” he mutters.

“Which is?”

“To think this through and not rush into it.”

“He and I do talk, you know.”

“About me? I know you do.”

“No,” Jay scoffs. “I mean, yes, once in a blue moon. But he's talked to me about wanting more babies with you.”

“Then he can carry ‘em for nine months and push ‘em out his nethers,” Louis quips.

“Oh, love, it's a gift. It's a gift to be able to give life.”

“And I've given it twice!”

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Jay assures him.

“Sounds like it!”

Jay tosses her hands in the air.

Louis stares at her. “Be honest, do you think of Mia as my -- I dunno, my first pancake?”

Jay stares at him in wounded disbelief. “What a thing for _you_ of all people to say to me!”

Louis feels terrible, then, and comes around the counter to hug her. She looks up at him, shaking her head in reproach.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers against her shoulder. “I'm sorry, that was out of line, that was stupid. I'm just testy about this. It isn't like I haven't agonized over it, myself.”

“I know, darling, I know it's a hard choice --”

“I have so much I want to do in my career, still,” Louis says, hugging her tighter. “When I look back on my life, I know I won't regret not havin’ more, if I don't. Might get a bit wistful, but not regret. But not getting where I want with my company? Not havin’ as many empty-nest years alone with Liam to travel and enjoy ourselves as we can get? I mean, Christ, mum, I've had that bloke raising babies since he was twenty-two, you know?”

“I know…”

“It's hard not to feel guilty,” Louis mutters. “That we got together when I was pregnant. I took his youth away.”

“That isn't how he feels about it at all. He _loves_ being a family man, Louis.”

“I know, but…” he sighs. “I should've just gone for one again right after Oliver was born, had Irish twins or summat, but I just didn't have it in me.”

“I do remember how grueling that was,” she assures him. “I remember that Mia was too... I haven't forgotten any of that, alright?”

“Aye, well."

She studies him. “Can you stay for dinner?”

“Oh, shit, sorry mum… maybe next week? I've got a teleconference back at the house, and Liam's making dinner.”

Jay pretends to pout, then pulls him in for another hug. He strokes her hair.

“There's no wrong decision here,” she whispers. “Just keep that in mind. Neither thing is the _wrong_ thing. You just do whatever you think is best for you and your family.”

 

LONDON, MARCH 4, 2029

“I have no idea,” Harry says, staring in bafflement at the massive colorful touch screen in front of him and its hundreds of options.

Mia leans across him and points. “Get a smoothie!”

Harry taps the smoothie option and glances at the first one. “It’s got sixty grams of sugar!” he exclaims in horror.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Mia says. “Is sixty bad? I only know calories. Get a salad.”

“They’ve all got meat in.”

“Oh, you’re _hopeless_. Just be bad for one afternoon, it won’t kill you.”

“I can be bad, but not with meat,” Harry explains. “Just as I haven’t had it in so long I might hurl, and I’ve got to drive the car.”

“It’s a self-driving car.”

“Probably still oughtn’t vomit on the dashboard while it’s in operation.”

“Do you do fish?”

“I do do fish.”

Mia laughs at this, then nods and points again. “Do one of the fish sandwiches. ‘Cos the veg ones taste like fried dirt.”

“Will they do it unbreaded for me? If I ask very nicely?”

“ _Harry_. This isn’t the Dorchester.”

“Alri-ight,” he relents.

“I’ll have a McFlurry and the McFalafel.”

Harry puts this in and pays; when he pulls up to the window, the girl gives him a double take.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” she says.

Harry pulls his hat down further over his head. “Hmm,” he replies.

Mia snickers in the passenger seat.

“I could swear I do,” she says, moving to hand their food over.

Harry gives her a winning smile. “Not sure, sorry.”

“He’s got one of those faces,” Mia calls.

“I’ve got one of those faces.”

The girl pulls the food back through the window and looks at their receipt. “Your card rang up as belonging to Harry Styles.”

Mia erupts in gales of laughter at this. Harry is sheepish.

“Right,” he says. “I am him, yes.”

The drive-thru girl seems relatively unmoved by this, but does hand him her cap and a sharpie. He signs it and surrounds his signature with hearts.

“Do you want a photo?” he says.

“No, there’s someone behind you, but thanks!” she says, waving them on. “Enjoy your food!”

Harry winks at her.

“What if you had just kept that up?” Mia says as they drive away, giggling. “‘No, very common name. I dunno. Sorry.’”

“Did you see her jerk the bag back? I think she was going to hold us hostage until I fessed up,” Harry says. “This is going to be all over the Internet in an hour, that I go around in hats to McDonalds locations and try to hide my identity while ordering fish sandwiches.”

“You’ll never work again.”

Harry thinks of Zayn, then, with mild anxiety. He shoots off a quick text to him, asking how his meeting is going.

 

*

 

Zayn doesn’t see the text for another two hours. He staggers out of his meeting exhausted, blinking in the bright midday, disoriented.

Steve wants money (fine) and a public apology (nightmarishly bad PR). Zayn tried to reason with him through his legal team, while he sat there, stone-faced and silent: “I’ll donate everything I make off it to UNICEF.”

“That won’t be sufficient.”

“Any charity he likes, then.”

“No.”

“I’ll give him songwriting credit as well.”

“No.”

And so on.

Zayn knows it isn’t just because he accidentally ripped off some parts of the song. Steve is angry because they fell out at a party after the album release.

They were both chasing after the same woman all night; her name was Savannah and she had clearly wanted to go home with Zayn. Zayn had said this frankly to Steve’s face, and Steve had come to blows with him. Steve was wasted, and Zayn was of course at this point no longer drinking, and handily won the altercation in way that was humiliating for the loser.

Zayn had fucked up, afterward. Instead of keeping his head and allowing them both to cool off, he had impulsively trashed Steve to their mutual friends and embarrassed him further. Now Steve has him by the bollocks.

He doesn’t feel like telling Harry about this. He knows that Harry would be understanding and reasonable about it, and that’s exactly what he doesn’t want, because Harry wouldn’t be in this situation. Zayn needs time to come to terms with the fact that he’s stepped in it, and there’s only one person he can think of to call.

Louis takes a while to answer.

“Everything alright?” he says when he finally does.

“Everythin’s fine,” Zayn assures him. He’s sitting in his car, not wanting to leave. “You sound like you’re driving.”

“I’m coming back from me mum’s... She had a solar panel down and was going to have Dan climb up there. I told her, like, hire somebody, but she was like oh no, it’s fine, Dan can do it. Old sixty-year-old Dan and his knees -- alright there, mum. So I just went and took care of it.”

Louis says all this with a sort of breathless boredom, like he’s got something else on his mind.

“How are Harry and Mia?” he adds.

“Good,” Zayn says, bouncing his leg. “Good… I think. You know Harry, like, overthinks this shit. And he needs every kid on the planet to like him, or he takes it personally.”

“Of course.”

“It’s fine, anyway. I’ve actually left them alone for a bit.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hmm,” Zayn says. “You’ll laugh at me.”

“Maybe. Go on.”

“So… Steve March is coming after me for plagiarism.”

“Steve March? Liam’s friend?”

“Jesus Christ,” Zayn mutters. “Anyone in this industry your husband don’t know? Like, one bloke? Just one?”

Louis snorts. “Alright, we’ve established I know who you mean, so go on.”

“I wrote with him on me last record,” Zayn says. “And we had this one song we scrapped, and now he’s sayin’ my latest single is a rip-off of it, and it some ways, yeah, he’s got a point, but like -- that happens, right?”

Louis clears his throat. “It does happen,” he says, in a way that makes it obvious he feels he’s being charitable and restrained.

Zayn takes offense at this, remembering a time when Mia was about two years old and they were having a knock-down drag-out row about potty training, which somehow became an indictment of each other’s fundamental morals as people.

Zayn had dragged up a load of painful things from when Louis was pregnant, and Louis had stormed up the stairs screaming behind him, “At least I didn’t rip off a song from fucking _Take Me Home_ on my fucking _SOLO ALBUM_ ,” which felt like the lowest blow in the world at the time and was, in hindsight, actually quite a hilarious thing to have screamed at him.

Regardless, now Zayn is thinking that Louis has him pegged as some sort of musical sneak thief, and feels he’s got to backpedal.

“They really weren’t that similar,” he says. “It’s the bridge, mostly. Who cares about the bridge?”

“Zayn,” Louis says with a smile in his voice.

“Alright,” Zayn huffs. “Basically, he’s dead set on a lawsuit.”

Louis sighs in sympathy.

“And I tried all the usual things, I offered to donate the profits, I offered to give him a writing credit. He wants a public apology, and two million.”

“Ooh, Christ,” Louis says. “A public apology? That’ll look awful.”

“Right! Yeah! And it’s only because me and him ‘ad a fistfight over a bird near on two years ago!”

“He’s still angry?”

“Apparently.”

Louis laughs. “You’ve got a certain knack for making people mad, you know?”

“Helpful,” Zayn says sarcastically.

“Well, why are you coming to me? Talk to Harold.”

Zayn hesitates.

“Oh,” Louis says. “Do you not want to?”

“It's weird,” Zayn admits, after a pause. “I… we left things on such a shitty note, last time. I feel like I'm afraid of him thinking anything bad of me, now.”

“Oh, mate, that isn't fair to yourself. It's been almost a decade, alright? You're a completely different person.”

“I just want it to be good,” Zayn murmurs, playing with the zipper on his jacket. “I want this to work so fucking badly. I've been waiting for this for like, twenty years.”

Louis is quiet.

“Sorry,” Zayn says quickly.

“What?”

“I didn't mean that -- I mean, what we had was great, while it lasted. I didn't get with you as a consolation prize.”

“Oh, no, I know,” Louis assures him. “That wasn't what I was thinking about. I was just gonna say that he's been waiting on it just as long.”

“Right.”

“Look, you deserve good things,” Louis says. “And he isn't going to leave you over things you did to each other ten years ago. You've got to let go of this mindset of thinking he's got amnesia and you've got to be afraid of reminding him how things ended last time. He knows, Zayn. He cares for you anyway. He wants you anyway. And vice versa. Remember that.”

“Right,” Zayn repeats.

“I feel like…” Louis clears his throat. “Like it was meant to be you two all along, you know?”

“I hope so,” Zayn says. His throat gets tight and he draws a deep breath with difficulty.

“Take it from me,” Louis says. “If no one else. I wouldn't lie to you about that.”

Zayn lolls his head to the side, resting his temple against the cool window. “Thanks, mate.”

Louis exhales. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Should me and Liam have another baby? I've sort of been agonizin’ about this.”

Zayn is surprised that Louis would even bring this up with him.

“You need to follow your heart on that,” he says. “Whatever you want most, deep down. Sometimes the things we really want are the most painful to think about.”

Louis doesn't say anything for a moment.

“Shit,” he mutters. “I think you've got a point.”

Zayn isn't sure which direction he's just nudged Louis in. “Well,” he says, rather pointlessly.

“Go talk to Harry,” Louis tells him. “That's my prescription. Take once a day, as needed.”

“Those are sort of opposite instructions,” Zayn says, smiling. “It's either as needed or a certain amount.”

“Well, once a day and then additionally as needed. Good relationship advice, innit? Honesty once a day, or more if you need it.”

“I like that,” Zayn says. “D’you follow your own advice, doctor?”

“Hey hey, we aren't talking about me,” Louis chirps.

“I just think it's interesting to ask your ex-boyfriend if you ought to have another baby, and not your husband.”

“Liam knows how I feel,” Louis says. “It's just a matter of me getting it sorted in me own head so I can give him a final verdict.”

“Good luck with all that,” Zayn says. “Sincerely.”

“Thanks, mate. See you Sunday.”

“See you.”

 

*

 

When Louis pulls through the gate, Oliver is helping Liam in the front garden, pulling up dandelions.

“Dandelions are pretty, I like them,” Oliver says, as he tosses them into a small bin.

Louis smiles to himself as he walks up the drive, idly tossing his keys and catching them.

“I like them too, but unfortunately they are a weed.”

Oliver pouts as he rips up some more. “Why aren't they a flower?”

“I don't really know the science on that,” Liam says. He looks handsome: his hair askew, his muscles standing out, his shirt wet with sweat and chest hair peeking out. “We can look it up later, if you like. Hey, love,” he says, standing and greeting Louis, who leans in for a kiss.

“How was your mum’s?”

Louis shrugs. “Same as always. You employing our son now?”

“Not really,” Liam says with a grin. “I'm not paying him, so…”

Louis snorts.

Liam gets a strange look and puts him at arm's length, then examines him, which Louis hates. He can predict with perfect clarity what Liam is about to say, because he noticed it himself this morning.

“Are you a bit thin, lately?” Liam says.

“How many years do you have to know me before you figure out that my weight fluctuates and I show it easily?” Louis replies, smiling patiently at him. “Because it's been twenty.”

“You're working too hard,” Liam says, with a worried brow.

“I'm not. I'm working exactly hard enough. I'm opening an entire new office in New York, Payno.”

“I know that,” Liam sighs.

“Then leave me alo-one about it,” Louis says, in a bright and sing-songy voice so Oliver doesn't look up from where he's engrossed by a pill bug he found.

“Louis… I wish you'd delegate more…”

“It's like you and your gardening, yeah? If you want it done right, do it yourself.”

Liam shakes his head.

“Am I not spending enough time with you? Tell me if I'm not, I want to know.”

“It isn't that,” Liam says, pulling him in close. “Look, forget it.”

“It'll quiet down by the summer,” Louis murmurs against the sweaty fabric of his shirt. “I promise, babe.”

“I believe you!” Liam assures him.

“Then why so gloomy?”

“I worry about you,” Liam says. “Like all the time, you know this. So just let me worry about you, and I’ll just let you work too hard, and we’ll take it on the chin like married people do.”

“Fair,” Louis says. He looks over Liam's shoulder at their son, who's still engrossed playing in the dirt. “Hey, dirt boy. What are you up to?”

“There's _loads_ of bugs,” Oliver calls to him enthusiastically.

Laughing, Liam comes up behind him and picks him up, tossing him over his shoulder. Oliver giggles and protests.

“I'm making dinner, you can't have dirty hands when you eat dinner,” Liam tells him, and lets him down.

“Nothing wrong with a little dirt,” Louis says, and Oliver runs to him for a hug. He squats and squeezes him close.

“My boys,” Liam says fondly. “You know, I had to fight him to get him to wear shoes out here.”

“Oh, so he is my son!” Louis exclaims. “You know, I wasn't entirely sure.”

“What do you mean?” Oliver says in horror, pulling back from him.

“Well, you know,” Louis says, with faux-solemnity. “They cut me open to take you out, and they put a little curtain up so I didn't have to see me own guts, so they actually could have switched you and I wouldn't know...”

“Daddy!” Oliver shouts.

“No, no,” Liam says, laughing. Louis gets up and tousles Oliver’s hair, and the three of them make their way inside.

“I saw them take you out,” Liam says gently. “And then they gave you to me to hold while they stitched your dad up.”

“Yeah, that's right, I forgot,” Louis says with a chuckle. “Liam was on the horrible side of the curtain, so they couldn't have. Course, he could be in on the conspiracy…”

“ _Daddy_ ,” Oliver complains.

“It's just banter, sonny boy. You really do look like me at your age, I've said this before.”

“Mia once told me you won me as a prize at the circus,” Oliver says. “But I knew she only said it ‘cos I broke her skateboard.”

“Well,” Louis says, taking a seat in the sitting room and getting his mobile out to dial into his conference call. Sheba sidles up against his legs, looking at him expectantly, wanting dinner. “That's quite obnoxious of her. _Obviously_ , we did not win you at the circus. Your dad and I made you all by ourselves.”

He winks at Liam, who winks back from the hall.

“I'll get dinner ready?” Liam says. “And feed the dog.”

“I’d love that, Payno. I'll probably be able to ring off this shit in about a half hour.”

“Want to help with cooking?” Liam says to Oliver. “Has it been long enough that you can be trusted with the carrot peeler?”

“Ooh,” Louis says, shaking his head. “I wouldn't risk it.”

Liam had tentatively given Oliver carrot-peeling duties a few months back; Oliver had very carefully peeled five carrots without incident, and then tripped over his untied shoelaces, fallen off the step stool, and somehow peeled a bit of Liam's knuckle skin off on his way down. Liam had sustained a very small injury and moped about it for the next five hours. Oliver had ended up in hysterics of guilt that Louis had to talk him down from.

“He can mash the potatoes,” Liam suggests.

Louis gives a thumbs-up. “Better.”

 

KENSINGTON, MARCH 4, 2029

“I'm sorry, what?” Harry says into his phone, his heart beginning to race.

“A car accident,” Stefan repeats. “A little fender bender, Harry, please don't get excited. He's just bumped his head, is all --”

“What hospital?”

“Whittington.”

“He was driving?”

“Yes! I was following right behind him, but you know, he's cranky in his middle age, he doesn't like to be driven anymore --”

“I'll meet you there,” Harry says, ringing off with clammy hands. He hurries upstairs to Mia’s room, where she's lying on her stomach on her bed, reading. She glances up impassively.

“Your dad’s been in a little car accident,” he says.

“What?” she exclaims, sitting bolt upright.

“He's alright, he just needed stitches --”

“Which one, like?” Mia splutters. “Zayn or Louis or Liam?”

“Zayn, sorry, Zayn. Grab your coat and I'll take us over,” Harry says, and then leaves her to it while he rushes downstairs to jam his feet into his oxfords.

Mia looks pale when she comes downstairs, and Harry wraps an arm around her.

“He's fine,” he assures her. “I promise.”

“Then why do you look so scared?”

“I'm sensitive,” he tells her, and she snorts.

 

*

 

Harry’s security calls ahead so that they can be ushered in a side door. Zayn has apparently been sent to cool his heels an exam room, so he isn't bothered by anyone in the waiting room. Harry finds this sort of amusing, that he's famous enough to be cloistered away but not famous enough to be seen within the hour.

Stefan meets them at the door and leads the way.

“It really isn't all that bad,” he says huffily. “He was lighting a fag and wasn't looking in his mirrors, and this bleedin’ idiot in a Tesla rear-ended him. I saw the whole thing from the lane over.”

“A Tesla?” Harry says, baffled. “A computer rear-ended him?”

“Nope, the idiot was driving manual,” Stefan says, gesturing theatrically as they walk briskly through the sterile white halls of the hospital.

Mia sighs. Harry tightens his grip on her shoulders, and she slips her arm around his waist. He feels more paternal toward her right now than he ever has.

“Maybe he'll stop smoking, now,” she says with a laugh.

“I wish,” Harry says.

They come up on the room and Stefan points them in. Harry pushes the door open to see Zayn perched on the end of a bed, a few of the buttons on his shirt undone, with an ice pack covered by a bloody rag pressed to his forehead.

“Yas, c'mere,” he says, spreading his free arm.

Mia hurries over to him and wraps her arms around him. He pats her on the back reassuringly. His hand is bandaged up, too.

Zayn notices Harry looking. “Airbag hit me,” he says, by way of explanation. Mia pulls back and takes his injured hand in her smaller one, examining it. “They did me up in the ambulance. It wouldn't have been so bad, ‘cept I was fuckin’ bent over lighting a cig with me hands in me face. I'm fine, though. I'm just waiting for someone to come do the stitches.”

Harry realizes he has his arms folded over his chest and is gripping his biceps, like he's protecting himself from something.

“You scared me,” he murmurs.

“Can you give us a minute?” Zayn asks his daughter. She nods.

“Give me vending machine money and I'll get you something,” Mia says. Zayn palms her a tenner and she heads off.

Zayn pats the bed next to him, and Harry sits down. He pulls Zayn’s hand from his face, and gasps in shock at the bleeding gash that slants vertically across his forehead.

“I'm fine!” Zayn exclaims. “Faces bleed somethin’ awful, you know that.”

“It just looks so bad,” Harry says, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. “Oh, Zayn, your face…”

“ _That's_ why he's worried,” Zayn says drily.

“No, no, I hate seeing you all banged up like this.”

“So,” Zayn says. “Why I wanted to talk to you alone…”

“Right...”

“I wanted to tell you,” he says carefully, “that -- like, well, I was embarrassed, ‘cos it's juvenile and fuckin’ thick of me, but the reason Steve March is coming after me extra hard on this song is that me an’ him got in a fistfight over a girl two years ago at my last launch party.”

Harry heaves a deep and theatrical sigh, not because he cares about that, but because of Zayn’s impulse to repeatedly hide the truth from him.

“Why are you so afraid of telling me anything that makes you look bad?” he says softly.

Zayn puts the rag back to his forehead and reaches out with his free hand, stroking his thumb over Harry's face.

“‘Cos I'm really happy,” he says, smiling wanly at Harry. “And it really scares me to be. I'm not good at it. I'm so afraid of losin’ you a third time.”

Harry smiles back at him, feeling immensely warm under his gaze.

“I'm happy too,” he says simply. “Don't be scared. Alright? Life's entirely too short for that.”

He rests the side of his face on Zayn's shoulder.

“They had to call the plastics bloke in,” Zayn says. “‘E gets Saturdays off.”

“What a shit hospital, only one plastics bloke?”

“They did take me to the nearest one…”

“Should have held out for somewhere better, it wasn't like you were dying.”

“Actually,” Zayn says, laughing, “I was bleeding into me eyes so bad I couldn't see. So they was like, we’re takin’ you to Whittington, and I was like right, that's fine then, more pressing issue here is that I think I've gone blind?”

Harry laughs very hard at this. Mia returns, then, with two Cokes. She hands one to a grateful Zayn and settles into the chair in the corner.

“How long’re we hanging out here?” she says.

“We’re waiting on a surgeon to do Zayn's stitches, apparently.”

“A surgeon?” Mia says. “Dad, come on. Just have any old doctor do it.”

“And walk away with a Frankenstein face, pet?” Zayn says. “No thank you. I want it done right.”

“Maybe Harry likes Frankensteins.”

“I can confirm I do not,” Harry puts in.

“Now we’ll be here for two extra hours, just ‘cos you fancy yourself too good to date my Frankenstein father,” Mia says.

Zayn laughs.

Harry wants to hold his hand, but one is wounded and the other is occupied. He settles for squeezing his thigh, instead.

 

*

 

Liam is the one who gets the call from Zayn as he's sautéing vegetables. Zayn hardly ever calls him directly, so he wipes his hands on a dish towel and quickly picks up.

“Hey, what's up?”

“I tried Louis and couldn't get him,” Zayn says.

“Yeah, he's on a call.”

“Oh, alright. So... I was in a little car accident. I think paps caught me just now walking out of the hospital, so I wanted to ring you.”

“Jesus, Zayn!” Liam exclaims. He flips the burner on low and tossing the dishrag over his shoulder. “The _hospital_? You alright, mate? Mia's okay?”

“She's fine, she's fine, she wasn't in the car.”

“Is Harry alright?”

“They're all fine. I was coming back from a meeting by myself. Look, it's just that my face is sort of busted up, and it looks worse than it is. I didn't want anyone to see photos and go round the twist over it.”

Liam thinks _anyone_ probably means Louis.

“Well, I'm glad you called,” he says. “D’you want us to pick Mims up early?”

“No, no, we’ve got it, it's fine. We’ll see you tomorrow, late afternoon sometime.”

“Alright. Hey, feel better,” Liam says. “You said it's your face?”

“Stitches in me forehead and hand,” Zayn says regretfully. “It's bloody moronic, really… this bloke smashes into me from behind while I was stopped and lighting up, and the airbag fuckin’ goes off like a shotgun.”

“Maybe you'll stop smoking?” Liam suggests, smiling to himself.

“Hmm,” Zayn says, clearing his throat. Liam laughs.

“See you tomorrow, take some painkillers…”

“I'm ahead of you there, I'm full of Vicodin right now.”

“Alright, enjoy that, then.”

“G’night.”

Liam rings off and looks at Oliver, who, for a lack of culinary guidance, has just been studiously mashing the potatoes into a glue.

“Ohh,” Liam says, wincing. Oliver looks up. “Never mind. Can you go get your dad for me?”

Oliver obediently disappears to the hallway and comes back in a minute or so, dragging Louis by his sleeve.

“Yes, Decca,” Louis says into the phone. “Yes, on Monday. No, all of the contracts, not just theirs. Why would I want just theirs, love?”

“Louis,” Liam says.

Louis grimaces and puts a finger up. Oliver begins tugging at his sleeve, more and more insistently until he has to switch his phone to the other hand. “No, that's fine. Alright. Fine. I'll see you then. Later.”

He hangs up and reaches down to deliver a very gentle swat to Oliver’s arse. “Don't tug on people,” he says amiably. “What's up?”

Oliver points to Liam.

“Before I say anything else,” Liam begins, “everyone's absolutely fine, but Zayn is very minorly injured. And no one else was in the car --”

“Zayn's crashed his car?” Louis exclaims.

“Yes, a little bit. Just a bit.”

“Can I see it?” Oliver says. “Is it all smashed up?”

“Shh,” Louis says, squeezing his shoulder. “What the hell’s minorly injured mean?”

“Stitches in his forehead and hand. Didn't sound that dire. They gave him pain meds, and I guess Harry's taking him home?”

“Is Mia alright?” Louis says, looking worried.

“Yeah, yeah,” Liam assures him. “She wasn't in the car.”

“Just checking.”

“Zayn just wanted you to know, ‘cos there were paps there, so…”

Louis nods and opens his phone, types something and then scrolls down.

“Oh, Christ, his forehead is _fucked_ ,” he says, sucking in air between his teeth. “God, that looks awful! Are you sure he didn't smash it off the dash?”

Liam shrugs. “I'm not a paramedic, babe, I didn't respond to the scene.”

“What happened to the car?” Oliver says.

“What's this thing you've got with cars?” Louis mutters, as he keeps scrolling.

“I've just never seen one get smashed up,” Oliver explains.

“Looks like a fender bender to me, kiddo, but if you want to see some cars get smashed up at the junkyard, I can absolutely arrange that,” Louis tells him.

Oliver looks very pleased.

“Wait, what d’you mean, looks like a fender bender? How d’you --” Liam comes close and peers over Louis’ shoulder. In addition to photos of Zayn walking out of the hospital, flanked by Harry and Mia, there are shots from the scene of him being put in the ambulance and his car being towed away. “That's insane! How’d they even get there in time?”

“They've been followin’ him again lately,” Louis says, sounding distracted. “Since he got with Harold.”

Liam sighs. “Christ, these people.”

“I know,” Louis murmurs.

“Alright, well,” Liam says, nudging his shoulder. “Want to watch me make dinner?”

Louis looks up and smiles. “I'd love to,” he says, kissing Liam on the cheek.

“Kissing is gross,” Oliver informs them.

Louis smiles harder and kisses Liam on the lips, instead. Liam slides his hands around Louis’ waist, and Oliver groans in protest.

 

*

 

Mia and Harry prop Zayn up on the couch, with a freshly wrapped ice pack for his face and a stack of pillows to elevate his hand with. He smiles gratefully at them as Harry brings him some leftovers from last night and Mia settles on the floor, searching on the TV for something they can all watch together.

Zayn nudges her with his foot. “Hey… Love you.”

“Love you too,” she says, smacking his foot away.

She swipes her hand in the air to bring up the search menu and then says, “Christopher Nolan movies.”

Harry intuits what she's about to do. “No,” he begs.

Mia turns around and grins at him wickedly. “Play _Dunkirk_ ,” she says aloud.

“No, no,” Harry says. He shakes his wrist and then pauses the TV with his watch. “Absolutely not.”

“I'd like to watch that,” Zayn protests. He's all loose-limbed and cheerful from the Vicodin. “You were cute in it.”

“It's embarrassing, I was an infant,” Harry says. “Wait, you've seen it?”

Zayn nods slowly. “Watched it when it came out. I mean, not in theaters, but...”

A strange and bittersweet feeling comes over Harry; a sort of warm sorrow. He looks tenderly at Zayn, and a brilliant smile breaks over Zayn's face like the sun rising.

“Missed you,” Harry mouths.

Zayn reaches out and takes Harry's hand in his bandaged one, pressing it to his own lips. Harry strokes his thumb over Zayn's stubbly cheek.

“So what do we actually watch?” Mia interrupts them.

“Hmm,” Harry says. “I want to say a romantic comedy. Like a classic one.”

“I'm up for that,” Mia says, to his surprise, and he begins to flick through the catalogue of films before finally settling on _Notting Hill_.

 

*

 

“I want to take a shower,” Zayn grumbles. He's standing at the foot of the bed as Harry switches the sheets out and assembles a stack of pillows for his hand. “I want to have a j and smoke a shower. Fuck, switch that around.”

“You aren't supposed to, but I can wash your hair for you,” Harry says, fluffing the last pillow and then turning around. He's dimmed the lights in an attempt to dull the nerve-wracking effect that the dark wood floors, looming bookcases and dark, tall-ceilinged walls of this bedroom have on him. His nerves are jangled enough already, today.

“Yeah?” Zayn says, looking pleased.

“Yeah, if you just lean your head over the tub, like…” Harry demonstrates. “I'll use the shower head and rinse your hair.”

They come to remember after stepping into the bathroom that Zayn's shower is far too fancy to have a detachable shower head, as the jets come straight out of the walls like a waterfall. The claw-footed tub on the opposite wall, meanwhile, is too old for a shower head to possibly be attached to its spigot. Harry glances around for a solution.

“I don’t think we’re butch enough for this,” he says, after a while. “I think we need outside intervention.”

“Well,” Zayn says, glancing at him, his dark eyes bright with amusement. “How’s this, like -- I lean over the tub, and you just use a cup to rinse with?”

“How old-timey of us,” Harry says with a smile. “Alright… sit down, then.”

Zayn obliges, settling onto the plush rug beside the tub with that catlike grace of his. Harry perches on the edge, beginning to run the water.

He thinks about how lovely Zayn looks, even with his awful split forehead held together by spartan black stitches. Zayn's dark hair is swept beautifully back off his forehead and temples, and his eyes are closed, fanning his lashes over his cheekbones.

His hair is growing more salt and pepper as he ages. He's beginning to look like Yaser did back when Harry first met him, but a more delicate and more forlorn version.

Harry starts the bath. The sound of running water always soothes him. He fills the cup and pours it over Zayn's head, wetting his hair. Zayn's eyes remain closed, his lips parted.

There's a ritualistic holiness this moment, even though they're crouched in bright bathroom lighting and Harry’s thighs are in pain from balancing on the side of the antique tub. Harry squeezes shampoo into his hands and lathers Zayn up, rubbing his scalp hard, taking care not to get any suds in his wound. Zayn lets out a soft moan of appreciation when Harry digs his fingers in more aggressively.

“Don’t stop,” he murmurs.

“I should have been a massage therapist,” Harry jokes.

“You should've, you've got those big elegant hands…”

“See, that's why I was a good baker.”

Zayn snorts.

Harry watches him over the next minute, observing as he bites his rosy lips and knits his eyebrows.

When he's satisfied with his work, Harry rinses his hair. Over and over with the cup. There's a rhythm to this activity that he likes, a little two-step dance of caring for someone. He does this very patiently, making sure every last bit of suds is gone, until Zayn's hair is a uniformly shining black.

“Want a little conditioner?”

“Just a touch,” Zayn says, chuckling. “Stylist Styles.”

Harry reaches out and strokes his thumb over the skin distended by his wound. He winces, and Harry quickly withdraws.

“Sorry...”

“Nah, love, don't be,” Zayn assures him. “Don't hurt as bad as it looks.”

Harry suspects Zayn isn't being exactly truthful about that. He had sworn up and down to Harry and Mia that the stitches weren’t painful at all, but Harry saw a few tears escape his eye as the plastics bloke began to sew up his hand. He massages the conditioner into Zayn’s hair. Zayn opens his eyes and smiles at him.

“I like you taking care of me,” he says.

“I like taking care of you,” Harry tells him, feeling a small flutter in his chest. He breaks eye contact, grinning. “Keep that hand elevated, alright?”

Zayn obediently raises his arm and sets his elbow on the edge of the tub.

“I wanted to take care of you back in…” Harry trails off. “Back in your, I dunno, your _bad_ time…” he uses air quotes.

Zayn nods.

Harry picks up the cup and begins rinsing his hair, running his fingers through the inky softness of it. “I feel like I let you down,” he whispers. “I was so jealous and insecure, I couldn’t -- it was like poison in me.”

“I’m glad we ended it when we did,” Zayn says, somber, gazing up at him. “If we hadn’t, I might have really ruined it between us. But why didn’t you call me when I got out of rehab?”

“I thought about it,” Harry admits. “So many times. I suppose I just felt like you’d moved on.”

“From Louis, yeah. Not from you.”

“Well, you were -- I mean, you nearly always had somebody in your life, too --”

“And so did you,” Zayn counters.

Harry sighs. “When I started teaching Mia, I thought about reaching out. She reminded me of you so much... But you were with Nina. And when I heard she was pregnant, it killed me. It was like Louis all over again. I thought I’d really never get my chance with you, that I’d blown it.”

“Haz,” Zayn says softly, “I’ve literally been waitin’ for you for like, twenty years.”

Harry leans in and kisses him. Zayn cups Harry’s jaw gingerly with his injured hand.

“I’m here now,” Harry murmurs.

 

LONDON, MARCH 5, 2029

Louis waits out front for Mia in a chair in the garden, as Liam putters beside him tending to his hellebores. It’s a beautiful crisp day, almost sort of warm in the direct sunshine. The air smells pungently of mulch.

“Niall’s back today,” Louis mentions, rubbing idly at his beard.

“Oh, good,” Liam says. “Wait, did we hear from him?”

“Harold did. He got, like, two minutes of service at base camp.”

“I think it’s weird that he never got along with Zayn after he left,” Liam says. “He’s usually so forgiving.”

“I think he felt, like, I’ve already got one shitty older brother…”

Liam snorts.

Louis sighs. “I dunno. Years go by and you haven’t talked to somebody, it’s easier to just stay moved on, I guess.”

“I do know he was angry that…”

Liam trails off. Louis turns to look at him. His mouth is a flat line as he prunes a flower.

“Well,” Liam says, clearing his throat. “I think Niall sort of felt like he broke up the family, I guess. I think Niall felt like we all were brothers, and then when we started sleeping together without him, it undermined that and sort of left him out in the cold. And it might be unfair, but Zayn was the nexus of that.”

“I went after Zayn, not the other way around,” Louis says.

Liam looks up at him and chuckles. “Oh, I know.”

They’re quiet for a moment, but peaceably so. Clouds skitter across the sky, and Liam clips a few flowers.

Louis watches him, thinking of how strange and nimble a creature a long relationship is. Liam's "Oh, I know" could possibly mean a hundred different things, but in the end both of them are too secure in each other to care. And so the meaning ultimately comes to a sum of zero, because of a decision they made without communicating at all, and because of a thousand small decisions they've made over the last thirteen years.

“But even before that, Harry,” Liam continues. “I remember that rattled Niall. He was so afraid of anything that would break up the band. And -- I dunno. Zayn left, and that was bad enough, but I think he could have forgiven him someday if he hadn’t left in this tornado of sexual drama. And he knew about Zayn and Harry’s second go-round while it was fresh and still happening, and it sort of felt like Zayn was going to self-destruct… maybe he thought he’d bring Harry down with him.”

“Maybe Harry can convince him all’s well in Denmark,” Louis says, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I dunno. It’d be nice to all five of us be on civil terms again, after fourteen fuckin’ years, and the band being over for five.”

“I like that concept,” Liam affirms. “Just in time for our vow renewal.”

“Exactly.”

Down the hill, the gate opens and Zayn’s Escalade rolls up. Louis wonders if the Bentley is in the shop right now, having its busted back bumper lovingly finessed. When they pull around the circular drive, Mia immediately hops out.

“Good morning dads,” she calls.

“Dad lads,” Liam sings to himself cheerfully. “Laddy dads.”

“Morning? It’s one-thirty,” Louis calls back.

She rolls her eyes and comes over, slinging her duffel off her shoulders into her hand and giving him a hug before heading over to Liam.

“Good afternoon, dads, then,” she says, squeezing Liam around the waist.

“Hey, love,” he says, patting her on the shoulder with a work-gloved hand and smiling down at her. “How’s the garden look to you?”

“As nice as it usually does, I guess.”

“Excellent.”

Zayn steps out of the car and comes over, bearing his busted face like a champ. “Hey,” he says. 

Louis winces on his behalf and stands, walking up to him to peek under his bandage. Zayn stands patient as a horse while he very gently eases up the corner of the medical tape and lifts the gauze to reveal an angry red slash that crawls vertically down his forehead and stops just before his eyebrow, knit together with black stitches.

“God, that looks bleedin’ awful,” he exclaims.

“Y’know what, though? I like Vicodin,” Zayn says light-heartedly.

“Aye, let’s not go back to rehab though, yeah?”

He and Zayn laugh quite hard at this.

“So where’s your man?” Louis says.

Zayn smiles at him, squinting in the sunlight. “Off to Red Bluff, to go pick up Niall.”

“Right, right.”

Behind them, Liam and Mia are quietly discussing something. Louis thinks he hears the word ‘auditions’ and his name. He turns.

“What’s up?” he says, glancing them up and down.

“Nothing,” Mia says innocently.

“I’ll fill you in later,” Liam assures him.

"Actually, I will," Zayn says, clearing his throat and inclining his head toward Liam. Liam gets a sheepish look of the sort that Louis hardly sees on him anymore. It's rare that Liam ever actually steps on Zayn's toes, these days, but Zayn is quick to maintain the edges of his fatherly territory. Liam paces these edges as part of his daily routine and navigates them like an acrobat.

Zayn takes his leave of them, waving genially with his unbandaged hand as he departs.

“Is someone takin’ care of you?” Louis hollers after him.

“Harry’ll be back soon,” Zayn calls as he slides his sunglasses over his eyes and gets into the driver's seat. “And I've got Stefan.”

“Keep that hand elevated,” Liam says as he waves. Zayn grins and nods.

“Alright, Dad,” he calls, and then pulls his door shut.

Louis returns to his family and wraps his arms around both of them. “So, what’d I hear about _auditions_?”

“I love you, Daddy,” Mia says immediately, in a syrupy voice.

“Mmm,” Louis says with sarcasm as they step inside. Liam snorts.

“Text Harry when he's off the plane. He'll explain,” she says.

“Fine. Want to practice shooting?”

He offers due to a growing paternal intuition he's got that she has something she wants to discuss with him in private. Mia acquiesces after some grumbling, because she's trying to play at forward when she tries out for her posh secondary school’s footie team in the fall, and competition is fierce. Liam settles in the sitting room to work on some writing while supervising Oliver’s homework, and Louis waits for her by the door to the back garden. 

She joins him in her cleats, which are dirty from playing in the mud the other week. Louis winces as he watches her tramp dirt on Liam's beloved Persian rugs.

“Want me in goal?”

“No, no,” she begs off. “Please just open goal today.”

“Alright,” Louis says, ruffling her hair. “How was the weekend?”

Mia shrugs.

“That good?”

“It was fine,” she says. They step off the patio and begin walking through the damp yard. Louis loves the sound of cleats in grass.

He kneels in the goal and begins tossing footballs to her over his head. When he’s freed all of them he returns to her side, observing her as she sets up her shot and tweaking her form. Overhead, woodpigeons coo in the trees. As busy with work and frustrated by his allergies as he's been lately, this is the first time he notices the air has begun to smell like spring in a really lovely way.

After five or so shots, Mia lets out a sigh and sits in the grass. Her face is drawn like she's working out how to say something.

“What’s up?” Louis says, dribbling to her a ball which had smacked slantwise off her foot and gone in his direction. He kicks it toward the pile of the rest and sits down next to her.

There's a moment of quiet, during which his paternal anxiety steadily ratchets up. He finds himself staring at her with knitted eyebrows.

“Do you ever wish your parents had stayed together?” she finally says, looking up at him. She seems pained.

Louis’ breath leaves him. He clasps his hands and takes a moment.

“As a very young kid, yes,” he says softly. “Before I knew what my father was like as a person, and before I came to really respect and care for Mark. And me and him don’t talk much, now, but there’s still -- there’s things he taught me about being a man that were important for me to know. And, I dunno -- I love my siblings to death, so.”

“I know,” Mia murmurs. “I love Oliver, I do. Even though I give him shit.”

“Why’re you asking me this?” Louis says to her. He doesn’t mean to sound hurt when he does, but it creeps into his voice. He knows why she's asking. He knows this conversation is long-coming and long overdue, but even so, he aches with dread as he sits there. He can't remember quite how his mum handled this one; he wishes he could pause time and call her.

“I feel dumb,” she says. “I don’t -- I never -- and I’ve just said the other day that I don’t care, but --”

“Take a deep breath," Louis tells her gently. "Get your thoughts together.”

Mia’s mouth twists like she’s trying not to cry. She looks at the ground and rips up grass.

“He loves Harry,” she says hoarsely. “He like, really, really loves him. He’s so nice to him. I don’t think he’s been like that with anybody. I can’t remember that he ever has, even Nina. And I’m really happy for them, I mean what I said, I don’t want them to break up, I want Dad to be happy after everything he’s been through. But I wish that I’d like -- ever seen the two of you treat each other like that. I wish I’d ever seen you love each other like that. It’s not like I even have divorced parents, I never even got to see you happy together at all!”

Louis inhales heavily and spreads his arms. “C’mere."

“I’m fine,” she protests, even though she’s crying now.

“No, c’mere, c’mere,” he says, getting to his feet and sitting down again next to her. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, and she sniffles against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Louis whispers.

“Don’t be sorry, God,” she says in a choked way. “I'm being a baby.”

“Oh, no, love. This is a perfectly normal way to feel, I promise.”

He swallows back his own tears and kisses her on the head.

“I don’t talk about my relationship with your dad much because a lot went on that’s painful to talk about, and it’s easier not to. And I don’t want you to think badly of either of us. But that isn’t fair to you.”

“What happened?” Mia says, pulling back and looking up at him, her pale eyes glittering with tears.

Louis heaves a sigh. “You know, don’t you?”

“You’ve never told me the whole story, no lying, no protecting Liam, no protecting Zayn, no protecting you,” she says. “I just want to know why. I want to know why you never tried to be a family with him, that’s all. I know he’s -- I know he had a hard time and he went to rehab and things were bad for a while. But they weren’t as bad yet when I was a baby, were they?”

Louis reaches out and smoothes her tears off her cheek with his thumb.

“In a way, they were,” he says. “In a way, I just had an intuition that they might be. In another way, I was selfish. I was selfish on me own behalf and also on yours, when I was pregnant.”

“What does that mean?” she says, studying him.

In a way of someone younger than his years, Louis lies back against the grass and looks up at the sky, so the words come from him more freely. After a moment, Mia joins him in this. The canopy of trees sways overhead.

“Your dad left the band,” Louis says. “I know that doesn’t sound like a very big deal to you.”

“I guess I can see how it could be.”

“That band was sort of our entire lives. For five years. That was really all we did. I mean, we had girlfriends and boyfriends, we had breaks, we had other friends and our families, but it was -- it was extremely all-encompassing. We were on tour, just the five of us, all the time. We were too famous and too busy to be normal. We grew up with each other.”

“I mean, I know you were really close.”

“Right, and you can see how -- it was a demanding job, so you can see how someone leaving without giving any notice would be, I dunno, very painful. And then to be rejected by that same person, for him to make fun of the music you’d worked so hard on… and I know, now. I get that he was depressed and anxious and going through terrible things. I look back, as a thirty seven-year-old, I look back on that twenty two-year-old boy and I feel awful for him.”

“But at the time,” Mia says.

“At the time,” Louis says, and laughs. “Alright. Um, how to say this without embarrassin’ you. So, a few months before we left, we started... dating.”

“Obviously,” Mia says.

“It was a dumb move on my part, to instigate it,” Louis says. “Your dad had been with Harry before that, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a very stupid thing to sleep with someone you’re in a band with. Write that one down for future reference. Don’t do that.”

Mia laughs. “Alright.”

“Especially if you end up a drummer.”

“I really don’t like the drums much, Dad.”

“Right,” Louis says. He chews his lip with anxiety. “Good, drummers are trouble. So, we’d been doing that for a while, and then we got a tour break. I sort of sensed somethin’ was off with your dad. I dunno. But we had this break. And on our way to the airport, um… you were, uh…”

“ _Ew_ ,” Mia exclaims. “What, you _made_ me? Ew, ew, ew!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Louis says, laughing.” Anyway, so we get on our separate flights. I was on Liam’s plane, ‘cos I wanted to talk with him about the album, and Zayn wanted to just sleep, so he took a plane by himself. Last time I saw him before all hell broke loose. During the break, we find out he’s leaving. I start textin’ him, terrified. He never texted me back. That was sort of how he broke it off with me. I took the hint.”

“That’s awful,” she says, sounding crestfallen.

“Hold on,” Louis says quickly. “Don’t -- I want to be honest, here, but I don’t want to make you think any which way. If you asked him, if he was here right now, he’d say it was because he was terrified of me guilting him into coming back. Which I might’ve done, if I’d gotten the chance. I’d have cried and yelled and made him feel awful. And I do think, now, that leaving was best for his health in the long-run. The struggles he had would have come much sooner if he hadn’t gotten out of the band.”

“Did you love him?” Mia says, and he can hear in her voice how important this question is to her.

“I wasn’t in love with him,” Louis says, with some grief. “I -- I love your dad, I do. He and me were best mates. We got on like a house on fire. It really tore me up to have him just dump us like that. I had hard feelings for a long, long time.”

“Did he love you?”

“He does love me,” Louis says.

“But was he in love with you?”

Louis closes his eyes.

“I dunno,” he admits. “I think, in his own way. He had feelings for me. That was why he cut me off when he left.”

“He called you bitchy,” Mia says. “I know _that._ ”

Louis’ heart sinks. “Yes, he did.”

“Like, why? Why would he do that? I've wondered about that for so long.”

“So long? Oh, sweetheart,” he says, devastated. She shrugs, and he takes a breath.

“He was distancing himself from us, and he was closest to me, so he came after me the hardest. And I had sent him some very harsh texts, and I was being passive aggressive on Twitter.”

“Did you know you were pregnant?”

“I did, at that point.”

Mia is quiet for a little while. Louis is struck by how painful this is to recall, even across years and years.

“That must have made you so sad,” she says.

Louis does not say that it made him profoundly, gut-wrenchingly sad. He does not say that it made him tear apart his hotel suite for something breakable and end up smashing five bottles of minibar liquor off the bathroom floor while screaming, “You bastard, you heartless cocksucking bastard _,_ ” and then lie in bed crying, trying to forget he was pregnant and then wretchedly remembering over and over, each time setting off a fresh round of sobbing.

“It made me worry about telling ‘im about you,” he says carefully.

“What happened?” she says. “When you found out about me?”

“I need you to know that I loved you immediately,” Louis says intently. “I need you to know that. That any thoughts I had about not havin’ you were because the situation was a complete nightmare, and I worried about bringing a baby into it. From that first night, I was trying to figure out a way I could keep you. I wanted you so badly.”

“I know, Dad,” she says, sounding very gentle, like she’s the parent. “I know.”

“Everyone…” Louis reaches out and takes her hand. She squeezes, hard, and he lets her go. “A lot of people around me suggested I have an abortion. For a while, that seemed like the only card on the table. And then, um, the rags got ahold of the story, and I went into this crisis meeting. And they said, what are you going to do? And I told them I was going to keep you. I just knew. I was so sure of it.”

“And Dad didn’t know at all?”

“No. I left straightaway to go tell him and your nan.”

“Did you talk about getting married?” Mia says in a small voice.

Louis sighs. “You have to understand it was so tough between us, ‘cos we were dealing with -- we’d broken up, he’d left the band, and then I was comin’ out of the blue to tell him I was pregnant. So we fought about the first two things, pretending they were about the third. And that was completely selfish of us. But we were twenty-two and twenty-three and just very, very thick in the head and immature.”

“So not at all?”

“We talked around it. We talked about how I refused to come home from the tour and he refused to come back to it. Hard to make a go of it when you aren’t in the same place, so it was sort of a foregone conclusion. And there was other shit -- he was still technically engaged to your aunt Pezza right up ‘til he left, even though it was a PR fix-up and they were always on the outs, and -- he was very young, and he didn’t take being engaged to her seriously. He was with other people, including me, and that made me nervous. And I doubt he really processed the enormity of having a child together, right then. It took me a properly long time, myself.”

“You didn’t give him a chance,” Mia says.

“Mims,” Louis says, pained.

“No, but you didn’t, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. You’re right. Not a real one.”

“You gave Liam a chance.”

“I was so terrified,” he says, “that I was going to be raising you alone. I’m really -- especially as a kid, I was not good at bein’ alone. At all. That was the scariest thing I could imagine. So, like, I did have this fantasy that your dad would come out to the tour and take care of me and we might rekindle things and maybe he’d come back to the band and we’d give it a go, maybe get engaged. When he said there was no way in hell, I panicked. I couldn’t give up my work ‘cos I knew I’d resent him for it, and that wouldn’t be fair, that’d set us off to an awful start.”

“Why Liam?”

“Liam and I got very close after he left. Liam was very good to me, always has been, he’s always been good to you too. From day one. Never said I ought to have an abortion, never even mentioned it to me, just listened to what I wanted.”

Mia’s face falls. “Wait, did Dad ever talk about that?” she whispers.

Louis’ heart clenches.

“Oh, no, love,” he lies immediately. “No.”

“Alright,” Mia says, seeming to believe him. He quietly exhales.

“And I need you to know, and I’ve told you this before, that, like -- as much as a surprise as you were, and as many problems as me and him were havin’, and as young as we were, he very much wanted you,” Louis says, emphasizing the last bit. “He came to as many doctor’s appointments as he could, he was always excited about you. He was thrilled you were a girl. He was the first person who met you besides me, and I saw him fall in love with you. It was just tough for both of us, right after you were born, so if you’ve ever heard any nonsense about our custody problems -- it isn’t what people make it sound like. It was always about us, never about you.”

“I know,” Mia assures him.

She sounds deeply genuine about this, to Louis’ relief.

“And when it comes to Liam,” he says, then breaks off and worries at his lip with his teeth. “I, um… this is hard to talk about.”

Mia sits up and looks at him, then begins plucking grass blades from the ground and arranging them on his stomach in a pattern. He remembers how young she is, still so much a child.

“I love you,” he tells her, feeling emotional. “To bits, kiddo.”

“I love you too,” she says, smiling. “Thank you for telling me all this stuff. I know it’s hard and awkward and, like, there’s a reason you don’t talk to me about it. But other people do talk to me about it, y’know? So I want to hear the truth, I want to hear your version.”

“Alright,” Louis says softly. “I get that. Um… obviously I got with Liam while I was pregnant with you.”

“Mhm.”

“I was away from your dad, and really angry with him, and obviously he didn’t come out and join the tour like I’d hoped. I was really just, like, frightened and lonely. And Liam had had feelings for me for a while, at that point, and I sort of developed feelings for him after your dad left, because we talked about that a lot and talked about the band and how we had to like, develop a new sound from the ground up, to compensate for losin’ Zayn’s voice, and tweak our image  -- this is boring, you don’t care --”

“I sort of care,” Mia says, dumping a handful of grass on him. He laughs, making some of it slip off him and down his ribs. “Sort of.”

“Well,” Louis continues, “the point is just that we became partners in a really solid way after we lost your dad. ‘Cos we were the closest to him, and we were sort of the leaders of the band. And we'd both been through breakups of really sort of long relationships, earlier in the year -- we were hurting in the same way, I guess is what I mean. And once we found out I was pregnant, Liam was -- I mean, I dunno. He took such good care of me. And it’s not like we were datin’, then, or like it was his baby -- I mean, you’re his daughter now, but back then -- you know.”

“I get it,” she says, nodding.

“I felt so safe with him,” Louis says, his voice growing hoarse. He clears his throat. “Always have. That was what I needed, right then, more than anything. And I was afraid that if I couldn't get it together to make a go of it with your dad, that I'd just end up being alone, 'cos I didn't think I'd find anyone who wanted to date someone who was pregnant, or who had a young baby with someone else."

"Why wouldn't they?" she says, her brows knit. "Liam did."

Louis smiles at her. "Most people don't want to settle down at that age. Liam loved me, and he came to love you, too, just like you were his."

"And you trusted him a lot?"

"I did. With reservations, 'cos we were so young. He was just old enough to drink in the states. But I could tell he would do his best to be a good step-dad to you, and he _wanted_ to be one so badly. He wanted a family a lot, and I knew he would always take good care of me and of you. And that… not that Zayn isn’t a good guy and a fantastic dad, but the way things were, and how our personalities are sort of..."

He trails off.

"What d'you mean?" 

"Your dad is a certain kind of person like I'm a certain kind of person," he says gently. "And we need patient and steady people, like a Harry or a Liam. I knew if we were together, we would hurt each other without meaning to. And we might do it again and again. That wasn't something I thought I could handle, because I was very vulnerable and very sensitive at the time, and just holding things together for the good of you and the good of the band. It was hard enough on me that your dad dated when I was pregnant."

"What kind of person am I?" she says, averting her gaze and playing with her bracelet, like she expects him to say she takes after her fathers in a bad way.

"Oh, darling, I don't know yet," Louis assures her. "You're only thirteen. I do know that you're more patient and kind than I was at your age, and you've got less reasons to be."

She seems pleased with this, which makes him happy.

“So..." she continues. "You never thought about being with him again? After you had me?"

“Of course I did,” Louis murmurs. “Absolutely. But I had to pick, and I could only pick one. I picked Liam. I don’t regret it, I worry that me and your dad might not have made it in the end.”

Mia lets out a long, theatrical sigh.

“Well, if you were upset that he dated when you were pregnant, wouldn't he be upset for the same reason?” she says. "Is that why you all had problems for _sooo_ long?"

Louis nods and bops her on the nose. “Part of it was that.”

“Did what you did hurt Dad?”

“Of course it did.”

Mia seems to consider this for a while. The trees sway above them. He taps with a knuckle on her shin guard.

“I know it’s hard to think of your parents as just people who make mistakes,” he says, “but that’s all we are, love. Just human beings who make mistakes. But at the end of the day, you’ve got three people who love you to the moon and back and would do anything to make you happy. You’re lucky.”

“I _knooow_ ,” she says, very teenageredly.

“And Harry loves you, too. I understand if it’s hard to see your dad happy with him, and for it to look so uncomplicated and easy after all the trouble me and Zayn have had..." Louis hesitates. "I felt the same way at first, honestly. But I promise it was a hard road for them to get there, and they deserve it, and it's good for them both.”

Mia nods.

“You and Liam are happy, right?” she says, looking at him with sudden anxiety.

Louis laughs very hard at this. “What? Yeah, of course. Always.”

“Okay, good.”

“Liam and I have been fighting over the same five things for the last twenty years,” Louis tells her. “And it always ends with us laughing. Don't worry about us.”

“Sometimes I've wished you and Dad were together, and we were a normal family,” she confesses. “But I love Liam, like, he's my dad too. I can't imagine things being different. I don’t really want them to be.”

“That does me good to hear,” he says, smiling.

“I just, like,” Mia says, and she looks down gloomily and tears up more grass. “Things are going to change, and when they do, I don't feel as special, and I know it's babyish, but I hate that.”

“Oh, love, you're like me, is all,” Louis assures her. “Someday that thing in you that wants to tell you you're not special will get quieter. Something about getting older makes it go away, I promise. But it can be good, too, ‘cos it makes you strive, it makes you ambitious and hungry. Just don't listen to it most of the time.”

“Do you promise it goes away? Do you swear? How old do I need to get?”

“Having a kid helps,” Louis says, grinning at her. “Not that you should do that for about another twenty years. Please don't do that anytime soon.”

“I had sex ed, Dad,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Did I tell you recently that I gave birth to you you without painkillers?”

“Only about every ten minutes.”

“I pushed an entire person out of me body without painkillers,” Louis continues on. “Have I told you how fun that was?”

“How old?” Mia demands, laughing and shoving at his shoulder.

“Round your mid-twenties, it should quiet down.”

“Ugh, that's _forever_!”

Louis sits up, and pulls her close.

“You're special,” he murmurs to her. “I promise. I mean it. Doesn't matter how many things change. Things can change all they like. People will change their minds about you, circumstances will change, things you took for granted will go away, that's just life. But you’ll always have your family, you’ll be you your whole life, you will be special your whole life. No one and nothing can change that, and people won't always understand it. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mia grumbles.

“Okay. Now let's get up and shoot some more before you go in and do your homework, ‘cos the U14 coach at secondary isn’t going to let you start at forward based off how special you are.”

“Dad,” she exclaims in great offense.

Louis pops up, dribbling a ball away from her. “Oh, you've let me go,” he says. “Oh, I'm shooting!”

He pops it into the net while she scrambles to her feet.

“I've just scored on you,” Louis informs her.

“Well, if I'm forward, you're offsides, aren't you?”

“There's no offsides in practice.”

“Then there's no scoring either!” she exclaims.

Louis gets another ball and drills it into the net. “Two-zip!”

Mia lets out a loud groan of frustration and begins shooting on the net to shut him up.

Louis settles down in the grass and watches her, listening to the faint afternoon buzz of nature and enjoying the sun on his face, perfectly content.

 

MOUNT SHASTA, MARCH 5, 2029

Harry sits in his car for an hour, plugged into a charging port out front of the sporting goods store he agreed to meet Niall at so he can keep the heat on full blast. He can feel it drying out his skin as he sits there, and he’s paying five dollars a minute for it, but the alternative would be to have a parka on in his car. He watches mountaineers scuttle around, filling up their canteens, buying boxes of protein bars and clipless shoes.

Niall finally appears. He’s walking down the road in a group of other climbers, all red-faced and bearded and bantering their arses off. Harry honks to him. Niall sees his car and waves grandly.

He says goodbye to all of his crew individually; they all bear hug him and don’t seem to want to let him go. Harry smiles to himself as he watches this.

After a while, Niall finally makes it over to him, heaving his gear into Harry’s trunk as loudly as possible and collapsing into the passenger seat.

“Oi! Warmth!”

“Better?” Harry says, grinning at him.

Niall nods emphatically. “Much,” he says, tearing his gloves off.

Harry reaches out, unclips his hood from his parka and slips his beanie off his head. Under it, his hair is growing in its natural light brown at the roots, with some streaks of grey. Harry tousles it. It’s stiff with dry shampoo.

“You need a shower,” Harry tells him. “You smell like a mountain man.”

Niall yawns and leans back in his seat. “I am a mountain man. What’s Red Bluff like? There a hotel near the airport? Me friend flew us right past on his Cessna, we didn’t see nothin’.”

“Don’t know about a hotel, but there’s a Wal-Mart,” Harry says, laughing. He looks in his rearview and signals to his security that he’s going to head out. “So, you haven’t been online at all? No texts?”

“Nope,” Niall says. “When I texted you, that was the first time I even had me phone out me bag. It was pointless, there’s no service up there. We were just talking about how, like, some VCs were bankrollin’ this effort with Verizon to get service on California mountains a while back, and themassive backlash --”

Niall trails off, noticing Harry is distracted. “What’s up?”

“I need to tell you that me and Zayn have been together since December, and it went public while you were up there,” Harry says. He starts the car and navigates it to the airport, then looks back to Niall.

Niall has begun rubbing at his beard, looking pensive. Harry looks at him guiltily.

“And you’re just tellin’ me now,” he says slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. He rubs at his eyes; they’re dry and bleary from sitting in the heat so long.

“How’d that even happen?” Niall says. “You’d practically sworn off him, after last time.”

“He’s changed,” Harry says.

“He’s literally just gotten out of an engagement!”

“She was cheating on him!”

“This just looks bad, from my point of view,” Niall says. “Can’t you see how it would? C’mon, Harry…”

They trundle along down the snowy road in silence.

“You forgave Barb,” Harry says pointedly. “She forgave you… You found your way back to each other, can’t you look at it that way? She’s the love of your life. I think he might be mine.”

He keeps his eyes on the road, even as the car operates itself, but he can feel Niall gazing at him from the passenger seat.

“Hardly ever hear you talk like that,” Niall says.

“Well,” Harry says, rather emotionally.

“I don’t think of Barb as the love of my life, though, just ‘cos I don’t think like that,” he says. “Ellie could have been. Or someone else. We’ve both grown and changed so much, it’s fuckin’ incredible that we could have dated as teens, gotten married as adults, gotten divorced, and gotten back together. I don’t take anything for granted with her, ‘specially not now. It’s hard work.”

“And it’s compatibility,” Harry insists. “You’re compatible. You care about each other. You’ve got a history. I’ve got all that with Zayn.”

“But is he gonna put the _work_ in, lad.”

“He already is!”

Niall clears his throat. “Look,” he says gently, “I dunno anythin’ whatsoever about the last four months between you two.”

“Three…”

“Three, so cut me some slack.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, pained. “I wanted to tell you. I was scared. First it didn’t feel real, because we were sneaking around. Then it got too real, all at once, and you were gone, and I had to deal with Louis --”

Niall inhales and gives a wry smile. “Is he cheesed?”

“I mean, he was concerned…” Harry twiddles his thumbs. “About Mia, really. Actually, we’ve just spent the whole weekend together.”

“You, Zayn and her?”

“Yeah. And Zayn got in a car accident.”

Niall boggles. “He alright?”

“He’s fine,” Harry assures him. “Just a fender bender.”

“God damn, I missed everythin’ up there,” Niall says. He takes his boots off, filling the car with a dry sweat smell.

“That’s disgusting,” he says, chuckling. “Sorry.”

Harry flaps his hand. “Whatever, it's just nice to have you back.”

“You know I just worry about you. Brothers for life, you and me.”

“Brudders,” Harry says, smiling. “I know. But look, Zayn’s gone to some lengths to prove himself to me.”

“When’d he dump this fiancée, again?”

“Listen… she was cheating on him. She lied to him about having a child with him!”

“Right, where’d that end up with?” Niall says. “Are we sure that’s the case?”

“Oh, come on,” Harry exclaims. “First of all, she did a pat test. And even before that -- he was on tour when she got pregnant… and you’ve _seen_ photos of that baby, he’s as white as the day is long.”

“I’m tweakin’ you, Harry,” Niall says with a grin. His blue eyes twinkle in his ruddy, bearded face. “I know he’s a stand-up dad and shite.”

“And he really is a different person now.”

“Alright, I believe you, but I wouldn’t know. Tell me, though, when’d he dump her?”

“Middle of November,” Harry says evasively, knowing full well how bad it sounds. “He wanted to do the right thing and stay with her ‘til the baby was born, help her out -- which is quite good of him, honestly -- but the real dad came into the picture and demanded the pat test, then said he wanted to take over. So Zayn said fine, and moved out… I dunno, I want to say exactly a month before Christmas.”

“When you got together,” Niall continues. “So they’d been split up a whole entire month, criminy.”

“They were having problems for months before that. Weren’t even sleeping in the same bedroom, hardly saw each other.”

“Harry,” Niall says, “I’ve been divorced. I’ve been separated. I know what you mean, but, like, it’s still a big deal.”

Harry feels a swell of childish emotion in him. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“I’ve been waiting so _long_ ,” he bursts out.

Niall reaches over and squeezes his thigh. “I know, mate.”

“Last time I had to --” Harry bites his lip. “You know how I am, I try to be even-keeled about these things, but I’m only human, for God’s sake. You know how hard it was to finally get back with him again and then watch him pine after Louis the entire time.”

“I do know,” Niall says. “‘Cos you told me.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry mutters. He’s deeply embarrassed by the person that thinking about this turns him into. “I just -- I have what I want, finally. And you trust my judgment with him, don’t you? I ended it last time, didn’t I? When it was too much, and he was spiraling? And you talk to Liam and Louis, too, you know he’s changed...”

“I’m always gonna play devil’s advocate, just ‘cos I care about you,” Niall says, and he lets out a sigh. “I don’t know what to tell you. I made a decision when he parted ways with us, and after the things he said about us and about Louis, that I didn’t want him in me life anymore. And I could do that like none of the rest of you could, ‘cos he wasn’t my ex, or my baby daddy, or my boyfriend’s baby daddy. I believe you that he’s changed, I’m willing to give him a chance, but you’ve got to know, I’ll be the first one to call malarkey.”

“And I need that in my life,” Harry says emphatically. “I don’t need yes-men friends, and I never have. That’s part of why I value you boys so much. We’re still straight with each other.”

Niall snorts.

“Alright, you know what I mean,” Harry says, grinning.

“Course.”

“And…” Harry chews at his lip and looks out at the road.

They’re making headway, now, rolling out of the small snowy town at the foothills of the mountain and onto a Northern California freeway that he doesn't know the name of.

“Are we much better than he is?” Harry says. “Haven’t we all done shitty things?”

He looks to Niall, who shrugs.

“I mean, won’t pretend like I’ve never slept with someone who already had a man,” he says drily. “Won’t pretend me hands are clean, there.”

“Zayn never even touched Louis once he was with Liam.”

“Not for lack of wantin’ to.”

“Neeeel…”

“I s’pose I’m too hard on him,” Niall says. “But I picked my side, didn’t I? Years ago. It’ll just take some mental reshufflin’. Don’t worry. Enjoy your life, enjoy your good thing. I’ll support you in everything you do. You’ve always got family in me an’ Barb.”

“I know,” Harry says, smiling. "I appreciate that more than I could ever say."

Niall smiles back.

“He’s sober as a judge, too,” Harry says. “Just want to add that. He’s, like, seven years sober, now.”

“That’s good to hear,” Niall says, rubbing at his beard. “Christ, this is itchy. I’d like a shave. You sure there’s no hotels around?”

“I’ll find one. Call Peter, then, have him switch our flight to tomorrow.”

Niall finger guns him and takes Harry’s mobile, scrolling through his call log. Harry watches him, slightly frustrated with him and yet immensely grateful for him.

The car takes an exit onto a less traveled road to save them time on their trip, and all at once, the scenery changes; Harry turns his face to the window to watch as the terrain to their left disappears from view and gives way to a sprawling green ravine that stretches as far as he can see.


End file.
